Ichiro Kishimi Quotes

“A community that you can break relations with by simply submitting a withdrawal notice is one that you can have only so much connection to, in any case.”

“A healthy feeling of inferiority is not something that comes from comparing oneself to others; it comes from one’s comparison with one’s ideal self.”

“A lot of people think that the more friends you have the better, but I’m not so sure about that. There’s no value at all in the number of friends or acquaintances you have.”

“A person who is obsessed with the desire for recognition does not have any community feeling yet, and has not managed to engage in self-acceptance, confidence in others, or contribution to others.”

“A way of living in which one is constantly troubled by how one is seen by others is a self-centered lifestyle in which one’s sole concern is with the I'.”

“Adlerian psychology is a psychology for changing oneself, not a psychology for changing others. Instead of waiting for others to change or waiting for the situation to change, you take the first step forward yourself.”

“Admitting mistakes, conveying words of apology, and stepping down from power struggles—none of these things is defeat.”

“All you can do in regard to your own life is choose the best path that you believe in.”

“Answers from others are nothing more than stopgap measures; they’re of no value.”

“Anyone can behave like a king when they’re alone. So, this is an issue that should be considered in the context of interpersonal relations. Because it isn’t that you don’t have an innocent self – it is only that you can’t do such things in front of others.”

“Being normal is not being incapable. One does not need to flaunt one’s superiority.”

“But is being normal, being ordinary, really such a bad thing? Is it something inferior? Or, in truth, isn't everybody normal?”

“Children who have not been taught to confront challenges will try to avoid all challenges.”

“Do not live to satisfy the expectations of others.”

“Does one accept oneself on the level of acts, or on the level of being? This is truly a question that relates to the courage to be happy.”

“Does one choose recognition from others, or does one choose a path of freedom without recognition?”

“First, there are two objectives for behavior: to be self-reliant and to live in harmony with society. Then, the two objectives for the psychology that supports these behaviors are the consciousness that I have the ability and the consciousness that people are my comrades.”

“Focus on the point Adler is making here when he refers to the self being determined not by our experiences themselves, but by the meaning we give them.”

“I have a young friend who dreams of becoming a novelist, but he never seems to be able to complete his work. According to him, his job keeps him too busy, and he can never find enough time to write novels, and that's why he can't complete work and enter it for writing awards. But is that the real reason? No! It's actually that he wants to leave the possibility of "I can do it if I try" open, by not committing to anything. He doesn't want to expose his work to criticism, and he certainly doesn't want to face the reality that he might produce an inferior piece of writing and face rejection. He wants to live inside that realm of possibilities, where he can say that he could do it if he only had the time, or that he could write if he just had the proper environment, and that he really does have the talent for it. In another five or ten years, he will probably start using another excuses like "I'm not young anymore" or "I've got a family to think about now.”

“If it is a shallow relationship, when it falls apart the pain will be slight. And the joy that relationship brings each day will also be slight. It is precisely because one can gain the courage to enter into deeper relationships by having confidence in others that the joy of one’s interpersonal relations can grow, and one’s joy in life can grow, too.”

“If one really has a feeling of contribution, one will no longer have any need for recognition from others. Because one will already have the real awareness that “I am of use to someone,” without needing to go out of one’s way to be acknowledged by others.”

“If one really has confidence in oneself, one doesn’t feel the need to boast. It’s because one’s feeling of inferiority is strong that one boasts. One feels the need to flaunt one’s superiority all the more. There’s the fear that if one doesn’t do that, not a single person will accept one “the way I am.” This is a full-blown superiority complex.”

“If the goal of climbing a mountain were to get to the top, that would be a kinetic act. To take it to the extreme, it wouldn’t matter if you went to the mountaintop in a helicopter, stayed there for five minutes or so, and then headed back in the helicopter again. Of course, if you didn’t make it to the mountaintop, that would mean the mountain-climbing expedition was a failure.

However, if the goal is mountain climbing itself, and not just getting to the top, one could say it is energeial. In this case, in the end it doesn’t matter whether one makes it to the mountaintop or not.”

“If you are disliked by someone, it is proof that you are exercising your freedom and living in freedom, and a sign that you are living in accordance with your own principles.”

“If you are leading a life of worry and suffering – which stems from interpersonal relationships — learn the boundary of 'From here on, that is not my task.' and discard other people’s tasks. That is the first step toward lightening the load and making life simpler.”

“If you are not living your life for yourself, then who is going to live it for you?”

“In a word, happiness is the feeling of contribution. That is the definition of happiness.”

“In life, there are encounters in which a book one happens to pick up one day ends up completely altering one’s landscape the following morning.”

“In the sense that you are concerned solely with the 'I', you are self-centered. You want to be thought well of by others, and that is why you worry about the way they look at you. That is not concern for others. It is nothing but attachment to self.”

“It is only when a person is able to feel that he has worth that he can possess courage.”