Maxwell Maltz arbeitete als Schönheitschirurg in den Staaten. Die meisten seiner Patientinnen und Patienten erfuhren durch eine Schönheitsoperation radikale Veränderungen: Die Bandbreite reichte von gesteigertem Selbstwertgefühl bis hin zu einer komplett veränderten Persönlichkeit. In den 70er Jahren machte ihm jedoch eine Sache zu denken: Bei einigen Patienten führte die OP zu keinerlei psychischer Veränderung, ganz gleich, wie radikal die physischen Veränderungen waren.
Er schlussfolgerte, dass kosmetische Korrekturen zu keiner Veränderung führen, wenn das Selbstbild seines Patienten schlecht ist. Dafür hatte er einen schönen Begriff: „Scarred on the inside“, was so viel wie „Innerlich / Seelisch vernarbt“ bedeutet.

Psycho Cybernetics Interview 1968

Unter brainyquote finden sich sehr schöne Zitate. Ich habe einige davon ausgewählt.

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

Close scrutiny will show that most „crisis situations“ are opportunities to either advance, or stay where you are.
Maxwell Maltz

For imagination sets the goal picture which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of will, as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.
Maxwell Maltz

If you make friends with yourself you will never be alone.
Maxwell Maltz

Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your hand-break on.
Maxwell Maltz

Man maintains his balance, poise, and sense of security only as he is moving forward.
Maxwell Maltz

Often the difference between a successful man and a failure is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage that one has to bet on his ideas, to take a calculated risk, and to act.
Maxwell Maltz

Our self image, strongly held, essentially determines what we become.
Maxwell Maltz

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

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

Self-image sets the boundaries of individual accomplishment.
Maxwell Maltz

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

Take the trouble to stop and think of the other person’s feelings, his viewpoints, his desires and needs. Think more of what the other fellow wants, and how he must feel.
Maxwell Maltz

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

To change a habit, make a conscious decision, then act out the new behavior.
Maxwell Maltz

To think, when one is no longer young, when one is not yet old, that one is no longer young, that one is not yet old, that is perhaps something.
Maxwell Maltz

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

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act.
Maxwell Maltz

We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.
Maxwell Maltz

You can always find the sun within yourself if you will only search.
Maxwell Maltz

You make mistakes. Mistakes don’t make you.
Maxwell Maltz

You may live in an imperfect world but the frontiers are not closed and the doors are not all shut.
Maxwell Maltz

Your most important sale in life is to sell yourself to yourself.
Maxwell Maltz