Quote

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

Albert Ellis

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Albert Ellis
Age: 93 †
Born: 1913
Born: September 27
Died: 2007
Died: July 24
Behaviour Therapist
Cognitive Scientist
Non-Fiction Writer
Psychologist
Sex Educator
Pittsburg
Pennsylvania
Greatest
Known
Woman
Self
Men
Conditional
Sickness
Esteem

More quotes by Albert Ellis

Image
I get people to truly accept themselves unconditionally, whether or not their therapist or anyone loves them.
Albert Ellis
Image
Religious fanaticism has clearly produced, and in all probability will continue to produce, enormous amounts of bickering, fighting, violence, bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
To err is human to forgive people and yourself for poor behavior is to be sensible and realistic.
Albert Ellis
Image
In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.
Albert Ellis
Image
I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven't got the time to take the kids to the goddamn ballgame. So it would have had more disadvantages than advantages for them.
Albert Ellis
Image
You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
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.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
When I started to get disillusioned with psychoanalysis I reread philosophy and was reminded of the constructivist notion that Epictetus had proposed 2,000 years ago: People are disturbed not by events that happen to them, but by their view of them. I could see how that applied to many of my clients.
Albert Ellis
Image
The art of love is largely the art of persistence.
Albert Ellis
Image
The attitude of unconditional self-acceptance is probably the most important variable in their long-term recovery.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
The goal...is not to change your desires and wishes but to persuade you to stop demanding that you absolutely must have what you wish-from yourself, from others, and from the world. You can by all means keep your wishes, preferences, and desires, but unless you prefer to remain needlessly anxious, not your grandiose demands.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming - or damning.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
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
Image
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
Albert Ellis