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

Albert Ellis

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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
Believe
Things
People
Optimistic
Optimism
Believing
Upset
Rather
Inspirational

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In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.
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Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.
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For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.
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I started to call myself a rational therapist in January 1955 later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist. But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques.
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I hope to die in the saddle seat.
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I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair that's the human condition.
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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.
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The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.
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If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic.
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Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I've received over the years.
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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. In that sense, psychotherapy belongs in the schools.
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The individual is taught that there is nothing that he as a total person is to feel ashamed of or self-hating for.
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If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.
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You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
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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.
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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.
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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 goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has.
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I teach people to be flexible, scientific and logical in their thinking and therefore to be less prone to brainwashing by the therapist.
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Worrying about dying will hardly help you live.
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To err is human to forgive people and yourself for poor behavior is to be sensible and realistic.
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