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

More quotes by Albert Ellis

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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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Worrying about dying will hardly help you live.
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Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional.
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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.
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If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.
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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.
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People could rationally decide that prolonged relationships take up too much time and effort and that they'd much rather do other kinds of things. But most people are afraid of rejection.
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As a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.
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Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.
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Worry itself is one of the most painful conditions.
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People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.
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People and things do not upset us. Rather, we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.
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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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So I'd better stop my whining and help myself cope better with even the worst Adversities.
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If human emotions largely result from thinking, then one may appreciably control one's feelings by controlling one's thoughts - or by changing the internalized sentences, or self-talk, with which one largely created the feeling in the first place.
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Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.
Albert Ellis
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Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.
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.
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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.
Albert Ellis
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You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.
Albert Ellis