Quote

The path to joy leads through despair.

Alexander Lowen

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Alexander Lowen
Age: 97 †
Born: 1910
Born: December 23
Died: 2008
Died: October 28
Psychotherapist
New York City
New York
Despair
Joy
Path
Leads

More quotes by Alexander Lowen

Image
Sexuality is not a leisure or part-time activity. It is a way of being.
Alexander Lowen
Image
A person with faith does not question its roots, for he knows that if he subjected it to the critical examination of his intellect, he would end up without faith. The same thing can be said of any feeling. You can analyze any feeling to death, but when you do that, you end up without feeling and without a meaninful life.
Alexander Lowen
Image
The repression of the memory is dependent upon and related to the suppression of feeling, for as long as the feeling persists, the memory remains vivid.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Contact with reality is not an all-or-nothing condition.
Alexander Lowen
Image
The feeling of love is a rich feeling, but the expression of love in word or deed is a joy.
Alexander Lowen
Image
A person does not choose his or her fate he or she only fulfills it. We are bound by our fate as long as we accept the values that determine it.
Alexander Lowen
Image
It is only by making the past alive again for a person that a true growth in the present is facilitated. If the past is cut off, the future does not exist.
Alexander Lowen
Image
What happened to me is that as I grew up, I found that I was smart. My mother had insisted on that you see. Oh, but I loved to play ball. I loved the physical aspect. So you have one leg in one field, and one leg in the other and you're nowhere.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Not to fear a person with power--to profess, instead, one's love--is to deny that that person has power.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Death is the fate no one can escape. The question, then, is, How does one die? A person can die like a hero or like a coward. The difference is that the hero can face death without fear, whereas the coward can't.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Without awareness of bodily feeling and attitude, a person becomes split into a disembodied spirit and a disenchanted body.
Alexander Lowen
Image
No one is exempt from the rule that learning occurs through recognition of error.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Above all, faith is grounded in one's body, in one's humanity, and in one's animal nature. It is an biological phenomenon and not a psychic creation
Alexander Lowen
Image
Sustenance for the infant and child is more than alimentary nourishment. The child needs love, security, narcissistic supplies -- however one may describe it.
Alexander Lowen
Image
If the ego is inflated it must be gradually deflated.
Alexander Lowen
Image
I would describe a hero as a person who has no fear of life, who can face life squarely.
Alexander Lowen
Image
The ego exists as a powerful force in Western man that cannot be dismissed or denied. The therapeutic goal is to integrate the ego with the body and its striving for pleasure and sexual fulfilment.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Love is the feeling that emanates from the heart and extends through the blood to every cell of the body.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Fear is another emotion that is strongly suppressed. We cannot afford to be afraid, and so we don't allow ourselves to sense and feel the fear within us. We lower our brows to deny it, set our jaws to defy it, and smile to deceive ourselves. But inwardly we remain scared to death.
Alexander Lowen
Image
Everyone who becomes a psychotherapist eventually adopts a theory that suits his needs.
Alexander Lowen