Albert Ellis Quotes

“Assume that most times when you feel anxious, depressed, or angry you are not only strongly desiring but also commanding that something go well and that you get what you want.

Cherchez le should, cherchez le must! Look for your should, look for your must! Don’t give up until you find it.”

“If you prefer to perform well and want to be accepted by others, you are concerned that you will fail and be rejected. Your healthy concern encourages you to act competently and nicely.

But if you devoutly believe that you absolutely, under all conditions, must perform well and that you have to be accepted by others, you will then tend to make yourself — yes, make yourself — panicked if you don’t perform as well as you supposedly must.”

“Insight is another name for awareness.”

“Persist at using the scientific method of questioning and challenging your irrational beliefs until you begin to give them up, increase your effectiveness, and enjoy yourself more.”

“The concept of deservingness for one’s 'sins' implies that certain acts are unquestionably under all conditions 'sinful'. And this is impossible to prove.”

“The expense of making yourself panicked, enraged, and self-pitying is enormous. In time and money lost. In needless effort spent. In uncalled-for mental anguish. In sabotaging others’ happiness.

In foolishly frittering away potential joy during the one life — yes, the one life—you’ll probably ever have.”

“Unconditional Self-Acceptance (USA) instead of Conditional Self-Esteem (CSE).

You rate and evaluate your thoughts, feelings, and actions in relation to your main goals of remaining alive and reasonably happy to see whether they aid these goals.

When they aid them, you rate that as 'good' or 'effective', and when they sabotage your goals you rate that as 'bad' or 'ineffective'.

But you always – yes, always — accept and respect yourself, your personhood, your being, whether or not you perform well and whether or not other people approve of you and your behaviors.”

“We can choose to change ourselves remarkably.”

“Whenever you have strong negative feelings because unfortunate things are actually happening to you or you imagine that they might occur, see whether these feelings healthfully follow from your wishes and desires to have better things occur.

Or are you creating them by going beyond your preferences and inventing powerful shoulds, oughts, musts, demands, commands, and necessities?

If so, you are turning concern and caution into overconcern, severe anxiety, and panic. Observe the real difference in your feelings!”

“You create both healthy and unhealthy feelings when your goals and desires are blocked.”

“You create severe anxiety when you jump from inclination to 'musturbation'.”

“You mainly make yourself needlessly and neurotically miserable by strongly holding absolutist irrational Beliefs (iBs), especially by rigidly believing unconditional shoulds, oughts, and musts.”