Quotes from Albert Ellis

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.

Much of what we call emotion is nothing more or less than a certain kind - a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind - of thought.

If you prefer to perform well and want to be accepted by others, you are concerned that you will fail and be rejected. Your healthy concern encourages you to act competently and nicely. But if you devoutly believe that you absolutely, under all conditions, must perform well and that you have to be accepted by others, you will then tend to make yourself—yes, make yourself—panicked if you don't perform as well as you supposedly must.

The expense of making yourself panicked, enraged, and self-pitying is enormous. In time and money lost. In needless effort spent. In uncalled-for mental anguish. In sabotaging others' happiness. In foolishly frittering away potential joy during the one life—yes, the one life—you'll probably ever have.

The art of love is largely the art of persistence.

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.

For many years now I have had the quaint idea that all humans-yes, the whole six billion of them on this planet-are out of their fucking minds.

Assume that most times when you feel anxious, depressed, or angry you are not only strongly desiring but also commanding that something go well and that you get what you want. Cherchez le should, cherchez le must! Look for your should, look for your must! Don't give up until you find it. If you have trouble finding it, seek the help of a friend, relative, or REBT therapist who will help you find it. Persist!

You mainly make yourself needlessly and neurotically miserable by strongly holding absolutist irrational Beliefs (iBs), especially by rigidly believing unconditional shoulds, oughts, and musts.

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

You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors. You have the ability, if you use it, to choose healthy instead of unhealthy thinking, feeling and acting.

The concept of deservingness for one's "sins" implies that certain acts are unquestionably under all conditions "sinful." And this is impossible to prove.

Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of them

Because when you don't perform remarkably well the next time, back to slobhood you will go! And even when you do perform well, you will be anxious about not doing so next time. So you had better like your fine performance—but not deify yourself for doing it.

The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own.

There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.

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.

You have only to exist as you do and to live your life as best you can.

I get people to truly accept themselves unconditionally, whether or not their therapist or anyone loves them.

Anger is the only negative emotion that people all over the world usually want to keep.

There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy.

To help people achieve the three basic REBT philosophies of unconditional self-acceptance, unconditional other-acceptance, and unconditional life-acceptance, cognitive, emotional, and behavioral methods, which are described in this monograph, are used.

REBT, then, helps you not only to understand what you "are" but to change what you harmfully think, feel, and do. It accepts your desires, wishes, preferences, goals, and values, then tries to help you achieve them. But REBT shows you how to separate your preferences from your insistences—and thus keep from sabotaging your own goals. It gives you insight into what you are now doing rather than into what you (and your damned parents!) have done.

You are still a person who completed a perfect project, but never a good person for doing so." "How, then, do I become an incompetent or bad person?" "You don't! When you do incompetent or evil acts, you become a person who acted badly—never a bad person.