In fact most of what we call anxiety is overconcern about what someone thinks of you.
Being assertive does not mean attacking or ignoring others feelings. It means that you are willing to hold up for yourself fairly-without attacking others.
The great majority of the things we now make ourselves panicked about are self-created ‘dangers’ that exist almost entirely in our own imaginations.
If people stopped looking on their emotions as ethereal, almost inhuman processes, and realistically viewed them as being largely composed of perceptions, thoughts, evaluations, and internalized sentences, they would find it quite possible to work calmly and concertedly at changing them.
Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I’ve received over the years.
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.
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.
Whenever you avoid alarming situations, you almost always increase your anxiety about them.
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.
Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.
Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.
Failure doesn’t have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.
People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.
If something is irrational, that means it won’t work. It’s usually unrealistic.
Whining about your own, others’, or the world’s failings is a main element in what we usually call neurosis.
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.
Much of what we call emotion is nothing more or less than a certain kind – a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind – of thought.
We teach people that they upset themselves. We can’t change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.
If the Martians ever find out how human beings think, they’ll kill themselves laughing.
The goal of all life is to have a ball.