Top 120 Maxwell Maltz Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “It takes 21 days to develop a habit.”

— Maxwell Maltz

Featured in: Habit Quotes

2. “To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.”

— Maxwell Maltz

Featured in: Quotes for Better Decisions, Habit Quotes

3. “Happiness is the art of relaxation.”

— Maxwell Maltz

4. “You can do only one thing at a time. I simply tackle one problem and concentrate all efforts on what I am doing at the moment.”

— Maxwell Maltz

Featured in: Efficiency Quotes, Problem-Solving Quotes

5. “The ‘self-image’ is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self image and you change the personality and the behavior.”

— Maxwell Maltz

Featured in: Know Your Worth Quotes

6. “If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.”

— Maxwell Maltz

7. “Live in the present. The past is gone; the future is unknown – but the present is real, and your opportunities are now.”

— Maxwell Maltz

8. “Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.”

— Maxwell Maltz

Featured in: Moving Forward Quotes

9. “Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.”

— Maxwell Maltz

10. “This is where you will win the battle – in the playhouse of your mind.”

— Maxwell Maltz

11. “Our self image and our habits tend to go together. Change one and you will automatically change the other.”

— Maxwell Maltz

12. “A step in the wrong direction is better than staying on the spot all our life. Once you’re moving forward you can correct your course as you go. Your automatic guidance system cannot guide you when you’re standing still.”

— Maxwell Maltz

13. “Self-improvement is the name of the game, and your primary objective is to strengthen yourself, not to destroy an opponent.”

— Maxwell Maltz

14. “You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.”

— Maxwell Maltz

15. “Ignore past failures and forge ahead.”

— Maxwell Maltz

16. “Self-esteem is as necessary to the spirit as food is to the body.”

— Maxwell Maltz

17. “Accept yourself as you are. Otherwise you will never see opportunity. You will not feel free to move toward it; you will feel you are not deserving.”

— Maxwell Maltz

18. “Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.”

— Maxwell Maltz

19. “Forgiveness is a scalpel that removes emotional scars.”

— Maxwell Maltz

20. “Self-discipline is the golden key; without it, you cannot be happy.”

— Maxwell Maltz

21. “Times will change for the better when you change.”

— Maxwell Maltz

22. “Change your mental imagery, and the feelings will take care of themselves.”

— Maxwell Maltz

23. “You are embarking on the greatest adventure of your life – to improve your self-image, to create more meaning in your life and in the lives of others. This is your responsibility.”

— Maxwell Maltz

24. “Functionally, a man is somewhat like a bicycle. A bicycle maintains its poise and equilibrium only so long as it’s moving forward towards something.”

— Maxwell Maltz

25. “Of all the traps and pitfalls in life, self-disesteem is the deadliest, and the hardest to overcome: for it is a pit designed and dug by our own hands, summed up in the phrase, ‘It’s no use – I can’t do it.’”

— Maxwell Maltz

26. “Plan all you want for the future. Prepare for it. But don’t worry about how you will react tomorrow, or even five minutes from now. Your creative mechanism will react appropriately in the ‘now’ if you pay attention to what is happening now.”

— Maxwell Maltz

27. “You are not your mistakes. Just because you have done something stupid does not make you stupid.”

— Maxwell Maltz

28. “We are built to conquer environment, solve problems, achieve goals, and we find no real satisfaction or happiness in life without obstacles to conquer and goals to achieve.”

— Maxwell Maltz

29. “A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment.”

— Maxwell Maltz

30. “Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a ‘real’ experience.”

— Maxwell Maltz

31. “Get into the habit of laughing; too many of us have forgotten how to laugh. As people grow older, they sometimes forget that they ever laughed. It is a part of their childhood that they can no longer remember.”

— Maxwell Maltz

32. “The un-happiest of mortals is that man who insists upon reliving the past, over and over in imagination – continually criticizing himself for past mistakes – continually condemning himself for past sins.”

— Maxwell Maltz

33. “I may be a mistake maker, but I’m also a mistake breaker.”

— Maxwell Maltz

34. “Admit your mistakes but don’t cry over them. Correct them and go forward.”

— Maxwell Maltz

35. “Fully 95 percent of our behavior, feeling, and response is habitual.”

— Maxwell Maltz

36. “Mental pictures offer us an opportunity to practice new traits and attitudes, which otherwise we could not do. This is possible because again – your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and one that is vividly imagined.”

— Maxwell Maltz

37. “Successful people are able to rise above crises by relaxing no matter what the external situation. Their belief in themselves, the strength of their self-image is impenetrable armor, which protects them against shattering events.”

— Maxwell Maltz

38. “When you’re not goal-striving, not looking forward, you’re not really living.”

— Maxwell Maltz

39. “Your nervous system cannot tell the difference between an imagined experience and a ‘real’ experience. In either case, it reacts automatically to information which you give to it from your forebrain. Your nervous system reacts appropriately to what you THINK or IMAGINE to be ’true.”

— Maxwell Maltz

40. “The most delightful surprise in life is to suddenly recognise your own worth.”

— Maxwell Maltz

41. “Happiness is simply a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time.”

— Maxwell Maltz

42. “The biggest secret of self-esteem is this: Begin to appreciate other people more; show respect for any human being merely because he is a child of God and therefore a thing of value.”

— Maxwell Maltz

43. “We are injured and hurt emotionally, Not so much by other people or what they say and don’t say, But by our own attitude and our own response.”

— Maxwell Maltz

44. “We, whoever we are, must have a daily goal in our lives, no matter how small or great, to make that day mean something.”

— Maxwell Maltz

45. “Realizing that our actions, feelings and behaviour are the result of our own images and beliefs gives us the level that psychology has always needed for changing personality.”

— Maxwell Maltz

46. “Remember you will not always win. Some days, the most resourceful individual will taste defeat. But there is, in this case, always tomorrow – after you have done your best to achieve success today.”

— Maxwell Maltz

47. “Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.”

— Maxwell Maltz

48. “When we consciously and deliberately develop new and better habits, our self image tends to outgrow the old habits and grow into the new pattern.”

— Maxwell Maltz

49. “Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible...”

— Maxwell Maltz

50. “Every day you must try to make yourself grow. This you can do.”

— Maxwell Maltz