Top 60 Russ Harris Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Psychological flexibility is the ability to adapt to a situation with awareness, openness, and focus and to take effective action, guided by your values.”

— Russ Harris

2. “So by all means, have your beliefs – but hold them lightly. Keep in mind that all beliefs are stories, whether or not they’re “true.”

— Russ Harris

3. “Stop trying to control how you feel, and instead take control of what you do.”

— Russ Harris

4. “Rule 1: The actions of confidence come first; the feelings of confidence come later.”

— Russ Harris

5. “A major concept in ACT is the idea of “workability.”

— Russ Harris

6. “A value is a direction we desire to keep moving in, an ongoing process that never reaches an end.”

— Russ Harris

7. “The mind loves telling stories; in fact, it never stops.”

— Russ Harris

8. “Having negative thoughts and feelings means I’m a normal human being.”

— Russ Harris

9. “Myth 1: Happiness Is the Natural State for All Human Beings.”

— Russ Harris

10. “There’s an ancient Eastern saying: “If you don’t decide where you’re going, you’ll end up wherever you’re heading.”

— Russ Harris

11. “Myth 2: If You’re Not Happy, You’re Defective.”

— Russ Harris

12. “Rule 2: Genuine confidence is not the absence of fear; it is a transformed relationship with fear.”

— Russ Harris

13. “Basically, expansion means making room for our feelings. If we give unpleasant feelings enough space, they no longer stretch us or strain us.”

— Russ Harris

14. “The more importance we place on avoiding unpleasant feelings in life, the more our life tends to go downhill.”

— Russ Harris

15. “How Does a Solution Become a Problem?”

— Russ Harris

16. “Develop the courage to solve those problems that can be solved, the serenity to accept those problems that can’t be solved, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

— Russ Harris

17. “The fact that you can act with love even when you don’t feel love is very empowering. Why? Because whereas the feelings of love are fleeting and largely out of your control, you can take the actions of love anytime and anyplace for the whole rest of your life.”

— Russ Harris

18. “What holds you back is not fear, but your attitude towards it. The tighter you hold on to the attitude that fear is something ‘bad’ and you can’t do the things you want until it goes away, the more stuck you will be.”

— Russ Harris

19. “In ACT, our main interest in a thought is not whether it’s true or false, but whether it’s helpful; that is, if we pay attention to this thought, will it help us create the life we want?”

— Russ Harris

20. “The Illusion of Control.”

— Russ Harris

21. “Q: Don’t I need high self-esteem in order to create a rich and meaningful life? A: No, you don’t. All you need to do is connect with your values and act accordingly.”

— Russ Harris

22. “And every single year, 95 percent of the atoms in your body are replaced by new ones.”

— Russ Harris

23. “The more we try to avoid the basic reality that all human life involves pain, the more we are likely to struggle with that pain when it arises, thereby creating even more suffering.”

— Russ Harris

24. “Fear is not your enemy. It is a powerful source of energy that can be harnessed and used for your benefit.”

— Russ Harris

25. “Unfortunately, many people walk around with the belief that everyone else is happy except for them. And – you guessed it – this belief creates even more unhappiness.”

— Russ Harris

26. “In the words of the great leader, Sir Winston Churchill: “Success is not final. Failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts.” Redefining.”

— Russ Harris

27. “Values describe what you want to do, and how you want to do it – how you want to behave toward your friends, your family, your neighbors, your body, your environment, your work, etc. The.”

— Russ Harris

28. “Creating a Life Worth Living.”

— Russ Harris

29. “Who is the one human being in your life who can always be there for you, in any moment, no matter what happens? Who is the one human being who can understand, validate, and empathize with your pain better than anyone else on the planet? Who is the one human being who can truly know just how much you are suffering? You are.”

— Russ Harris

30. “The most important thing is sailing toward shore.”

— Russ Harris

31. “If you’re breathing, you know you’re alive. And as long as you’re alive, there’s hope.”

— Russ Harris

32. “The greater your psychological flexibility, the better you can handle painful thoughts and feelings and the more effectively you can take action to make your life rich and meaningful.”

— Russ Harris

33. “A: Acknowledge your thoughts and feelings. C: Connect with your body. E: Engage in what you’re doing.”

— Russ Harris

34. “Accept it. Take effective action to improve it.”

— Russ Harris

35. “Therefore, it makes sense to put your life’s energy mainly into action and attention.”

— Russ Harris

36. “It’s a sense more of resignation than of acceptance, of entrapment rather than freedom, of being stuck rather than moving forward.”

— Russ Harris

37. “The “But My Values Conflict with Each Other” Demon.”

— Russ Harris

38. “Most of us want pretty much the same thing. We want to know there is someone there for us: someone who truly cares about us, who takes the time to understand us, who recognizes our pain and appreciates how badly we are suffering, who makes the time to be with us and allows us to share our true feelings without expecting us to cheer up or pretend everything is okay, who will support us, who treats us kindly and offers to help, whose actions demonstrate that we are not alone.”

— Russ Harris

39. “Yet inviting this man for dinner would mean the world to your partner. If it’s really important for you to support your partner, then you could invite this man over for dinner, greet him warmly at the door, welcome him into your house, and make him feel completely at home, even though you intensely dislike him. That’s willingness.”

— Russ Harris

40. “Another way of putting this is that your thinking self produced some thoughts, and your observing self observed them.”

— Russ Harris

41. “The world is full of people who are trying to purchase self-confidence, or manufacture it, or who simply posture it. But you can’t fake confidence, you have to earn it. If you ask me, the only way to do that is work. You have to do the work.”

— Russ Harris

42. “To get to the values underlying a goal, you need to ask yourself, “What’s this goal in the service of? What will it enable me to do that’s truly meaningful?”

— Russ Harris

43. “This particularly tends to happen with depression and anxiety. With anxiety you tend to get hooked by stories about the future, about things that might go wrong and how badly you’re sure to handle them.”

— Russ Harris

44. “We call these “control strategies” because they are attempts to directly control how you feel.”

— Russ Harris

45. “The “I Don’t Know If These Are My Real Values” Demon.”

— Russ Harris

46. “Adopting this definition means you can be successful right now, whether or not you’ve achieved your major goals.”

— Russ Harris

47. “LOVE is not just an acronym: it is a useful way of thinking about “love” itself. If you think of love as an ongoing process of letting go, opening up, valuing, and engaging, then it is always available to you – even when the feelings of love are absent. So in this sense of the word, you really can have everlasting love. But if you think of love merely as an emotion or feeling, then it can never last for long because all feelings and emotions continually change.”

— Russ Harris

48. “First, be wary of holding on to any belief too tightly. We all have beliefs, but the more tightly we hold on to them, the more inflexible we become in our attitudes and behaviors. If you’ve ever tried having an argument with someone who absolutely believes they are right, then you know how pointless it is – they will never see any point of view other than their own.”

— Russ Harris

49. “We need to pay attention with a particular attitude: one of openness, curiosity, and receptiveness.”

— Russ Harris

50. “But wanting to get rid of something is quite different from actively struggling with it.”

— Russ Harris