Quote

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

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
Brain
Situation
Rationally
Possible
Assessment
Often
Realistic
Problem
Towards
Different
Positive
Thinking
View
Views

More quotes by Albert Ellis

Image
Needing leads to bleeding - to almost all inevitable suffering.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
We'd better work hard on getting rid of that must - Other people must do what I want them to do! It's what makes people hostile, nasty, mean and combative, and it leads to feuds, wars and genocide. We'd better do something about that.
Albert Ellis
Image
Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency. Had I not been a therapist, I would have been an efficiency expert.
Albert Ellis
Image
There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they'll kill themselves laughing.
Albert Ellis
Image
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
Albert Ellis
Image
Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
So I'd better stop my whining and help myself cope better with even the worst Adversities.
Albert Ellis
Image
Unless, of course, you insist on identifying yourself with the people and things you love and thereby seriously disturb yourself.
Albert Ellis
Image
Reality is not so much what happens to us rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.
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
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.
Albert Ellis
Image
The easy way out is often just that-the 'easy' way out of the most rewarding lifestyle.
Albert Ellis
Image
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
Image
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
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
In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.
Albert Ellis