Bruno Bettelheim famous quotes

03-26-2025

What cannot be talked about cannot be put to rest. And if it is not, the wounds will fester from generation to generation.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Generations #Wounds
You can't teach children to be good. The best you can do for your child is to live a good life yourself. What a parent knows and believes, the child will lean on.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Children #Good Life #Believe
Play permits the child to resolve in symbolic form unsolved problems of the past and to cope directly or symbolically with present concerns. It is also his most significant tool for preparing himself for the future and its tasks.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Children #Past #Play
Raising children is a creative endeavor, an art rather than a science.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Art #Children #Creative
Punishment may make us obey the orders we are given, but at best it will only teach an obedience to authority, not a self-control which enhances our self-respect.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Respect #Self #Order
You cannot have sex education without saying that sex is natural and that most people find it pleasurable.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Sex #People #Natural
The ability to read becomes devalued when what one has learned to read adds nothing of importance to one's life.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Add #Importance #Ability
The child intuitively comprehends that although these stories are unreal, they are not untrue ...
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Inspirational #Children #Stories
This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence -- but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Children #Struggle #Messages
For those who immerse themselves in what the fairy tale has to communicate, it becomes a deep, quiet pool which at first seems to reflect only our own image; but behind it we soon discover the inner turmoils of our soul - its depth, and ways to gain peace within ourselves and with the world, which is the reward of our struggles.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Struggle #Soul #Depth
Not only is our love for our children sometimes tinged with annoyance, discouragement, and disappointment, the same is true for the love our children feel for us.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Love #Disappointment #Children
Creativity stands at the center of all education.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Creativity
Play reaches the habits most needed for intellectual growth.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Play #Intellectual #Growth
The fear of failure is so great, it is no wonder that the desire to do right by one's children has led to a whole library of books offering advice on how to raise them
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Children #Book #Offering
The unrealistic nature of these tales (which narrowminded rationalists object to) is an important device, because it makes obvious that the fairy talesâ€™ concern is not useful information about the external world, but the inner process taking place in an individual.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Important #World #Information
The question for the child is not Do I want to be good? but Whom do I want to be like?
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Children #Want #Be Good
Since there are thousands of fairy tales, one may safely guess that there are probably equal numbers where the courage and determination of females rescue males, and vice versa.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Determination #Numbers #Female
If we hope to live not just from moment to moment, but in true consciousness of our existence, then our greatest need and most difficult achievement is to find meaning in our lives.
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Achievement #Needs #Consciousness
The delight we experience when we allow ourselves to respond to a fairy tale, the enchantment we feel, comes not from the psychological meaning of the tale (although this contributes to it) but from its literary qualities-the tale itself as a work of art,
-- Bruno Bettelheim

#Art #Quality #Enchantment

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