Albert Ellis famous quotes

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Inspirational #Life #Happiness

The great majority of the things we now make ourselves panicked about are self-created 'dangers' that exist almost entirely in our own imaginations.
-- Albert Ellis

#Self #Imagination #Worry

Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
-- Albert Ellis

#Real #Self #Order

There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.
-- Albert Ellis

#Encouragement #Growth #Three

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.
-- Albert Ellis

#Years #Problem

The goal of all life is to have a ball.
-- Albert Ellis

#Goal #Balls #Life Is

It is only in your mind that you have to excel, at anything or everything. Of course, it would be very nice to excel at most things. Indeed, we recommend that you try and do your best. But realistically, you are entitled to do the bare minimum to get by. All your accomplishments are just a bonus, something to enjoy, not requirements. You don't have to do anything to prove that you are worthy of existing.
-- Albert Ellis

#Nice #Accomplishment #Mind

Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
-- Albert Ellis

#Goal #Goes On #Want

If human emotions largely result from thinking, then one may appreciably control one's feelings by controlling one's thoughts - or by changing the internalized sentences, or self-talk, with which one largely created the feeling in the first place.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Self #Feelings

By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.
-- Albert Ellis

#Failure #Past #Errors

Stop shoulding on yourself
-- Albert Ellis

I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven't got the time to take the kids to the ***** ballgame.
-- Albert Ellis

#Children #Kids #Degrees

Let's suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.
-- Albert Ellis

#Choices #Abuse #Sexually

If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.
-- Albert Ellis

#Hate #Upset #Impossible

People and things do not upset us. Rather, we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.
-- Albert Ellis

#Inspirational #Believe #People

The trouble with most therapy is that it helps you feel better. But you don't get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.
-- Albert Ellis

#Wise #Feel Better #Get Better

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.
-- Albert Ellis

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

#Food #Hands #Decision

You mainly feel the way you think.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Way #Feels

The emotionally sound person should be able to take risks, to ask himself what he really would like to do in life, and then to try to do this, even though he has to risk defeat or failure. He should be adventurous (though not necessarily foolhardy); be willing to try almost anything once, just to see how he likes it; and look forward to some breaks in his usual life routines.
-- Albert Ellis

#Risk #Trying #Sound

The attitude of unconditional self-acceptance is probably the most important variable in their long-term recovery.
-- Albert Ellis

#Attitude #Recovery #Acceptance

We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.
-- Albert Ellis

#Past #Thinking #People

I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Unfair #Human Condition

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Wise #Bullying #Kids

People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Motive

There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.
-- Albert Ellis

#Sex #Men #Irrational

If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.
-- Albert Ellis

#Done #Academic #Members

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.
-- Albert Ellis

#Inspirational #Depression #People

The individual is taught that there is nothing that he as a total person is to feel ashamed of or self-hating for.
-- Albert Ellis

#Hate #Self #Taught

The emotionally mature individual should completely accept the fact that we live in a world of probability and chance, where there are not, nor probably ever will be, any absolute certainties, and should realize that it is not at all horrible, indeed—such a probabilistic, uncertain world.
-- Albert Ellis

#World #Facts #Chance

If people stopped looking on their emotions as ethereal, almost inhuman processes, and realistically viewed them as being largely composed of perceptions, thoughts, evaluations, and internalized sentences, they would find it quite possible to work calmly and concertedly at changing them.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Perception #Evaluation

You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
-- Albert Ellis

#Depression #Given

The art of love is largely the art of persistence.
-- Albert Ellis

#Love #Relationship #Inspiring

Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I've received over the years.
-- Albert Ellis

#Years #People #Criticism

Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.
-- Albert Ellis

#Real #World #Belief

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Children #School #Thinking

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Love #Acceptance #Alive

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

#Self Esteem #Men #Sickness

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Religious #Psychosis #Personality

Fat is a barrier, a bellicose statement to others that, to some, justifies hostility in kind. The world says to the fat person, "Your fatness is an affront to me, so we have the right to treat you as offensively as you appear." Fat is not merely viewed as another type of tissue, but as a diagnostic sign, a personal statement, and a measure of personality. Too little fat and we see you as being antisocial, fearful and sexless. Too much fat and we see you as slothful, stupid, and sexually hung up.
-- Albert Ellis

#Stupid #Food #Personality

Most things worth having require some sacrifice, usually more than you expect.
-- Albert Ellis

#Sacrifice

Thinking rationally is often different from "positive thinking," in that it is a realistic assessment of the situation, with a view towards rectifying the problem if possible.
-- Albert Ellis

#Positive Thinking #Assessment #Views

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Attitude #Mean #Feelings

Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.
-- Albert Ellis

#Hate #People #Blame

We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming - or damning.
-- Albert Ellis

#Essence #Neurosis #Blame

Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.
-- Albert Ellis

#Failure #Intrinsic Value #Persons

People could rationally decide that prolonged relationships take up too much time and effort and that they'd much rather do other kinds of things. But most people are afraid of rejection.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Rejection #Effort

Needing leads to bleeding - to almost all inevitable suffering.
-- Albert Ellis

#Acceptance #Suffering #Bleeding

In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Worry #Anxiety

Worry itself is one of the most painful conditions.
-- Albert Ellis

#Worry #Anxiety #Painful

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency. If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic. 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. Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional. The art of love is largely the art of persistence.
-- Albert Ellis

#Art #Real #Self Esteem

Convince yourself that worrying about many situations will make them worse rather than improve them.
-- Albert Ellis

#Worry #Anxiety #Situation

And just as two wrongs don't make a right, rage against offenders is probably the worst way to try to correct them.
-- Albert Ellis

#Hate #Two #Trying

Unless, of course, you insist on identifying yourself with the people and things you love; and thereby seriously disturb yourself.
-- Albert Ellis

#Attachment #People #Detachment

Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.
-- Albert Ellis

#Wise #Class #Neurosis

The easy way out is often just that-the 'easy' way out of the most rewarding lifestyle.
-- Albert Ellis

#Work #Way #Easy

I get people to truly accept themselves unconditionally, whether or not their therapist or anyone loves them.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Accepting #Therapists

I wrote several articles criticizing psychoanalysis, but the analysts weren't listening to my objections. So I finally quit after practicing it for six years.
-- Albert Ellis

#Years #Listening #Six

In the old days we used to get more referrals, because people had insurance that paid for therapy. Now they belong to HMOs, and we can only be affiliated with a few HMOs.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Referrals #Used

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Hate #Philosophy #War

I had a great many sex and love cases where people were absolutely devastated when somebody with whom they were compulsively in love didn't love them back. They were killing themselves with anxiety and depression.
-- Albert Ellis

#Sex #People #Anxiety

Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance.
-- Albert Ellis

#Self Esteem #Acceptance #Views

I'm very happy. I like my work and the various aspects of it - going around the world, teaching the gospel according to St. Albert.
-- Albert Ellis

#Teaching #World #Aspect

This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it.
-- Albert Ellis

#Buddhist #Real #Self Esteem

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.
-- Albert Ellis

#Goal #Soul #Purpose

I hope to die in the saddle seat.
-- Albert Ellis

#Saddles

I started to call myself a rational therapist in 1955; later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist.
-- Albert Ellis

#Behavior #Used #Therapists

I thought foolishly that Freudian psychoanalysis was deeper and more intensive than other, more directive forms of therapy, so I was trained in it and practiced it.
-- Albert Ellis

#Form #Deeper #Therapy

You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.
-- Albert Ellis

#Keys #Serenity #Needs

People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.
-- Albert Ellis

#People #Insight #Bother

I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.
-- Albert Ellis

#Age #Public Speaking #Behavior

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the ***** dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.
-- Albert Ellis

#Animal #Thinking #People

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

#Giving #Challenges #World

If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they'll kill themselves laughing.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Laughing #Humans

People are terrified of other people or difficult projects because they tell themselves that they could fail or be rejected. Failure can lead to sorrow, regret, frustration and annoyance-all healthy feelings without which people couldn't exist.
-- Albert Ellis

#Regret #Frustration #People

The more sinful and guilty a person tends to feel, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, or law-abiding citizen. He will become a compulsive wrong-doer.
-- Albert Ellis

#Law #Healthy #Guilt

Whatever may be, I am still largely the creator and ruler of my emotional destiny.
-- Albert Ellis

#Responsibility #Destiny #Emotional

Is self-esteem a sickness? That's according to the way you define it. In the usual way it is defined by people and by psychologists, I'd say that it is probably the greatest emotional disturbance known to man and woman.
-- Albert Ellis

#Self Esteem #Men #Emotional

You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Self #Healthy

To err is human; to forgive people and yourself for poor behavior is to be sensible and realistic.
-- Albert Ellis

#Forgiveness #People #Forgiving

Lack of forgiveness of others breeds lack of self-forgiveness.
-- Albert Ellis

#Forgiveness #Self #Self Forgiveness

Much of what we call emotion is nothing more or less than a certain kind - a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind - of thought.
-- Albert Ellis

#Emotion #Kind #Certain

Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency.
-- Albert Ellis

#Thinking #Efficiency #Genes

Many psychoanalysts refused to let me speak at their meetings. They were exceptionally vigorous because I had previously been an analyst and they were very angry at my flying the coop.
-- Albert Ellis

#Flying #Speak #Analysts

If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic.
-- Albert Ellis

#Mean #Irrational #Working It

I regret that I've been so busy with clinical work that I haven't been able to spend much time on experiments and outcome studies.
-- Albert Ellis

#Regret #Outcomes #Able