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

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
Fact
Facts
Someone
Thinking
Anxiety
Thinks
Worry
Call

More quotes by Albert Ellis

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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
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If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they'll kill themselves laughing.
Albert Ellis
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You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
Albert Ellis
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Whining about your own, others', or the world's failings is a main element in what we usually call neurosis.
Albert Ellis
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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
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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
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The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.
Albert Ellis
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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
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Whenever you avoid alarming situations, you almost always increase your anxiety about them.
Albert Ellis
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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
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Beginning in the 1960s, many studies showed that people who hold what we call irrational beliefs are significantly more disturbed than when they don't hold them, and the more strongly they hold them, the more disturbed they tend to be.
Albert Ellis
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There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women or that men are more willing to surrender their irrational beliefs. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.
Albert Ellis
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We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming - or damning.
Albert Ellis
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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
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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
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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
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People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.
Albert Ellis
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People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.
Albert Ellis
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I'm very happy. I like my work and I like the various aspects of it - going around the world, teaching the gospel according to St. Albert - I like that. And seeing clients, doing group therapy, writing books.
Albert Ellis
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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