Albert Ellis Quotes

“Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human.”

“As a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.”

“Be yourself for a while, even if it hurts.”

“Being assertive does not mean attacking or ignoring others feelings. It means that you are willing to hold up for yourself fairly – without attacking others.”

“By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular.

And I succeed with them because, again, I don't care too much what other people think.”

“Convince yourself that worrying about many situations will make them worse rather than improve them.”

“Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.”

“Even injustice has it's good points. It gives me the challenge of being as happy as I can in an unfair world.”

“Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.”

“For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.”

“Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency.”

“I think the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs.”

“If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic.”

“If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they'll kill themselves laughing.”

“In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.”

“Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I've received over the years.”

“Most things worth having require some sacrifice, usually more than you expect.”

“Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.”

“People and things do not upset us, rather we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.”

“People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.”

“People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.”

“Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.”

“Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.”

“Religious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.”

“Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.”

“Spirit and soul is horseshit of the worst sort. Obviously there are no fairies, no Santa Clauses, no spirits.

What there is, is human goals and purposes as noted by sane existentialists. But a lot of transcendentalists are utter screwballs.”

“Stop 'shoulding' on yourself.”

“Strong feelings are fine; it's the overreactions that mess us up.”

“The art of love is largely the art of persistence.”

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”