Albert Ellis People Quotations

People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.

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.

We teach people that they upset themselves. We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.

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

People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.

I had a great many sex and love cases where people were absolutely devastated when somebody with whom they were compulsively in love didn't love them back. They were killing themselves with anxiety and depression.

Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I've received over the years.

In the old days we used to get more referrals, because people had insurance that paid for therapy. Now they belong to HMOs, and we can only be affiliated with a few HMOs.

The psychotics, naturally, don't think straight. Severe personality disorders take much longer to treat than people who are neurotic.

Unless, of course, you insist on identifying yourself with the people and things you love; and thereby seriously disturb yourself.

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, and I hope that REBT teaches them how to do it.

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 feelings without which people couldn't exist.

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.

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

Even when people act nastily to you, don't condemn them or retaliate.

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

We teach people to be flexible, scientific and logical in their thinking and therefore to be less prone to brainwashing by the therapist.