When I was 16 I started keeping a diary in which I recorded my disagreements with the famous philosophers. I didn't insist that they were wrong, that I was right and I had to prevail. I just agreed and disagreed with them. I thought there was a high degree of probability that I was right and some other thinkers were wrong. But I wasn't positive about it.

Albert Ellis

Categorized in : Diaries Degrees Philosopher

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

happiness inspirational life

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

Albert Ellis

optimistic inspirational believe

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

Albert Ellis

growth three encouragement

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.

Albert Ellis

healthy self thinking

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

real mean thinking

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

views philosophy years

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed with them because, again, I don't care too much what other people think.

Albert Ellis

caring ideas thinking

You mainly feel the way you think.

Albert Ellis

feels way thinking

People are terrified of other people or difficult projects because they tell themselves that they could fail or be rejected. Failure can lead to sorrow, regret, frustration and annoyance - all healthy, negative feelings without which people couldn't exist. But then they add, "I absolutely must succeed and must be loved by significant persons, and if I don't, it's terrible and I'm no good." Those are irrational beliefs. As long as people keep them, they'll be terrified of life and will put themselves down when they get rejected.

Albert Ellis

frustration regret long

You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.

Albert Ellis

serenity keys acceptance

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.

Albert Ellis

self feelings thinking

It is only in your mind that you have to excel, at anything or everything. Of course, it would be very nice to excel at most things. Indeed, we recommend that you try and do your best. But realistically, you are entitled to do the bare minimum to get by. All your accomplishments are just a bonus, something to enjoy, not requirements. You don't have to do anything to prove that you are worthy of existing.

Albert Ellis

accomplishment nice mind

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

failure errors past

If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.

Albert Ellis

upset hate impossible

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

assessment positive-thinking views

To err is human; to forgive people and yourself for poor behavior is to be sensible and realistic.

Albert Ellis

forgiveness forgiving people

Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. 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

real self order

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

Albert Ellis

destiny responsibility happiness

Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.

Albert Ellis

neurosis wise class

When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.

Albert Ellis

preference belief people