Science Quote by Maxwell Maltz

Maltz smuggles a psychological diagnosis into the language of motivation: the biggest barrier to “opportunity” isn’t scarcity or talent, it’s the private bureaucrat in your head stamping DENIED on every possibility before you even apply. “Accept yourself as you are” isn’t a self-esteem slogan here; it’s a prerequisite for perception. If you’re busy prosecuting yourself, you don’t just feel bad, you literally fail to register openings as openings.

The quote’s engine is its chain of causality. Self-rejection doesn’t stay in the feelings department; it metastasizes into behavior (“you will not feel free to move toward it”) and then into a moral verdict (“not deserving”). That last phrase matters: Maltz pins paralysis on shame, not laziness. In his world, the person who can’t seize a chance isn’t unmotivated; they’re trapped in an invisible ethics system where aspiration feels like theft.

Context sharpens the intent. Maltz, a mid-century physician best known for psycho-cybernetics, wrote at a time when American culture was enthralled by self-improvement, but also primed for conformity and quiet self-surveillance. He offers a clinical-sounding fix: change the self-image and you change the action loop. It’s the therapeutic undercurrent beneath the can-do era, insisting that willpower fails when the psyche is convinced it’s unworthy.

The subtext is both liberating and a little austere: stop negotiating with an inner judge. Acceptance isn’t the finish line; it’s the removal of the ankle weights that make every opportunity look like it belongs to someone else.