Top 100 Albert Ellis Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware.”

— Albert Ellis

52. “Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.”

— Albert Ellis

53. “Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they’re alive and human.”

— Albert Ellis

54. “I think it’s unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that’s the human condition.”

— Albert Ellis

55. “Most people would have given up when faced with all the criticism I’ve received over the years.”

— Albert Ellis

56. “Religious fanaticism has clearly produced, and in all probability will continue to produce, enormous amounts of bickering, fighting, violence, bloodshed, homicide, feuds, wars, and genocide.”

— Albert Ellis

57. “Men are not disturbed by things, but by the views which they take of them.”

— Albert Ellis

58. “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.”

— Albert Ellis

59. “The more sinful and guilty a person tends to feel, the less chance there is that he will be a happy, healthy, or law-abiding citizen. He will become a compulsive wrong-doer.”

— Albert Ellis

60. “Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.”

— Albert Ellis

61. “We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming – or damning.”

— Albert Ellis

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

— Albert Ellis

63. “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.”

— Albert Ellis

64. “You largely constructed your depression. It wasn’t given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.”

— Albert Ellis

65. “Too many people are unaware that it is not outer events or circumstances that will create happiness; rather, it is our perception of events and of ourselves that will create, or uncreate, positive emotions.”

— Albert Ellis

66. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.”

— Albert Ellis

67. “As a result of my philosophy, I wasn’t even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn’t hate him. I hated what he was doing.”

— Albert Ellis

68. “I started to call myself a rational therapist in 1955; later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist.”

— Albert Ellis

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

— Albert Ellis

70. “Worrying about dying will hardly help you live.”

— Albert Ellis

71. “I hope to die in the saddle seat.”

— Albert Ellis

72. “Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance.”

— Albert Ellis

73. “I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.”

— Albert Ellis

74. “Whining about your own, others’, or the world’s failings is a main element in what we usually call neurosis.”

— Albert Ellis

75. “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!”

— Albert Ellis

76. “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.”

— Albert Ellis

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

— Albert Ellis

78. “This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it.”

— Albert Ellis

79. “The individual is taught that there is nothing that he as a total person is to feel ashamed of or self-hating for.”

— Albert Ellis

80. “Having some support and the reassurance that my family, friends, or others will help me when I am anxious will often reduce my anxiety and panic. But because such support and reassurance may not exist or may not continue, I’d better not rely on it solely. I also had better gain self-confidence and self-support. 8.”

— Albert Ellis

81. “Keep my desires and goals in mind. Don’t insist that they must or must not be fulfilled. Let me work unfrantically to achieve them. REBT.”

— Albert Ellis

82. “Evolution is arranged so that a species survives, not so that it will be happy while it survives.”

— Albert Ellis

83. “For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.”

— Albert Ellis

84. “Try to remember the last time you felt extremely angry. Recall what you focused upon and how you acted. Were you able to reasonably consider good courses of action? Were you able to look at all your options? Did you make the best decision? Do you regret something you said or did? If you are like most people, you will see that you hardly think and behave at your best when you feel enraged.”

— Albert Ellis

85. “Let’s suppose somebody abused you sexually. You still had a choice, though not a good one, about what to tell yourself about the abuse.”

— Albert Ellis

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

— Albert Ellis

87. “I’m very happy. I like my work and the various aspects of it – going around the world, teaching the gospel according to St. Albert.”

— Albert Ellis

88. “I regret that I’ve been so busy with clinical work that I haven’t been able to spend much time on experiments and outcome studies.”

— Albert Ellis

89. “I thought foolishly that Freudian psychoanalysis was deeper and more intensive than other, more directive forms of therapy, so I was trained in it and practiced it.”

— Albert Ellis

90. “I would have liked having children to some degree, but frankly I haven’t got the time to take the kids to the goddamn ballgame.”

— Albert Ellis

91. “By forcefully telling nasty people off, or performing other cathartic acts, you will supposedly stop your aggressive energy from building to harmful levels.”

— Albert Ellis

92. “Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency.”

— Albert Ellis

93. “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.”

— Albert Ellis

94. “Annabel, one of my clients who cherished her perfectionism because she felt that it made her a fine writer and an excellent mother, was having a hard time with some of David Burns’s teachings against perfectionism in his book, Feeling Good. Dr. Burns, she thought, told her to give up all ideal goals and stick only to realistic and average ones. Then she couldn’t be disappointed or depressed.”

— Albert Ellis

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

— Albert Ellis

96. “The next time you feel angry, try to become aware of some of the physical sensations and changes that are occurring in your body. Remember that physical reactions accompanying your chronic anger can lead to damage, illness, and possibly premature death.”

— Albert Ellis

97. “I wrote several articles criticizing psychoanalysis, but the analysts weren’t listening to my objections. So I finally quit after practicing it for six years.”

— Albert Ellis

98. “If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.”

— Albert Ellis

99. “Many psychoanalysts refused to let me speak at their meetings. They were exceptionally vigorous because I had previously been an analyst and they were very angry at my flying the coop.”

— Albert Ellis

100. “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.”

— Albert Ellis