Quotations CBT & REBT for clearing your heart and mind.

CBT & REBTTherapy TermsQuotationsAphorismsQuotations ScriptureRelated Fast-FactsRelated Pages6 Groups of Topics10 Skills & Topics

Quotations: CBT & REBT

Complete system of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT & REBT) written for the average reader, discover Garden.
Improve the efficiency & effectiveness of REBT theory & practice, discover Not.
Most quotations appear in Secret of Maturity, 4th Edition, in both ebook and print editions.

Quotations CBT & REBT that make its principles easier to understand and put into practice. Use CBT and REBT to improve your relationships.

“Our emotions are the result of our beliefs.” —Lie Yukou

Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind and heart.

Quotatoions CBT & REBT

CBT = Cognitive Behavior Therapy.
CT = Cognitive Therapy.
REBT = Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy.
CBT is the generalized form that contains portions of REBT, CT, & related practices such as Schema Therapy & DBT.
CT began with Aaron Beck and continues with its ongoing advocates & contributors.
REBT began with Albert Ellis and continues with its ongoing advocates & contributors.
REBT was the first cognitive psychotherapy, and CT the second, according to Aaron Beck.

Click for a list of pages on CBT & REBT.

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Quotations from Various Sources

Listed Alphabetically

“A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.” —Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918–2008), Soviet writer and dissident

“A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that there is both good and bad in all people and in all things.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Although I am distinctly fallible and easily disturbable. I also have the ability to think, feel, and act differently and thus reduce my disturbance.” —Albert Ellis

“A successful person is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks that others throw at him or her.” —David Brinkley

“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

“All human knowledge takes the form of interpretation.” —Walter Benjamin

“All things are subject to interpretation whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“Almost all our suffering is the product of our thoughts. We spend nearly every moment of our lives lost in thought, and hostage to the character of those thoughts. You can break this spell, but it takes training just like it takes training to defend yourself against a physical assault.” —Sam Harris

“Always remember this Anna, there are no walls, no bolts, no locks that anyone can put on your mind.” —Otto Frank

“And above all, that the wrong-doer has done thee no harm, for he has not made thy ruling faculty worse than it was before.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Be master of mind rather than mastered by mind.” —Zen proverb

“Because you upset yourself, therefore you, luckily, can practically always un-upset the one person in the world whose thoughts and feelings you control—you!” —Albert Ellis

“Because your disturbances include thoughts, feelings, and actions, you can make a three-way attack on them: change your thinking, your emoting, and your behaving. Use your head, your heart, and your hands and feet!” —Albert Ellis

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“Bliss lies in our taste, not in the things themselves; we are happy when we have what we like, not what other people find attractive.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Buddhists were actually the first cognitive-behavioral therapists.” —Jack Kornfield, The Wise Heart: A Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology

“But do not of your own accord make your troubles heavier to bear and burden yourself with complaining.” —Seneca

“But if anything in thy own disposition gives thee pain, who hinders thee from correcting thy opinion?” —Marcus Aurelius

“But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured. And it is in my power not to think so.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Change how you see and see how you change.” —Zen proverb

“Change your philosophy, change your life.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Change your thinking, change your life.” —Ernest Holmes

“Change your thoughts, and you change your world.” —Norman Vincent Peale

“Character is destiny.” —Heraclitus

“Choose not to be harmed—and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed—and you haven’t been.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Constant attention by a good nurse may be just as important as a major operation by a surgeon.” —Dag Hammarskjold

“Despite everything, no one can dictate who you are to other people.” —Prince

“Dichotomies exist in thinking and choices, for example, ‘Will you turn the lights on or off?’ The thinking error of black-and-white thinking occurs when you force dichotomous thinking and choices where a variety exists.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Disputing your self-defeating, irrational beliefs is one of the main and most helpful methods of REBT.” —Albert Ellis

“Do not let the behavior of others destroy your inner peace.” —Dalai Lama XIV

“Don’t ask why the patient is the way he is, ask for what he would change.” —Milton Erickson

“Don’t regard what anyone says of you, for this, after all, is no concern of yours.” —Epictetus, Enchiridion

“Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: ‘I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.’” —Groucho Marx [Julius Henry], United States comedian

“Each of us does, in effect, strike a series of ‘deals,’ or compromises, between the wants and longings of the inner self, and an outer environment that offers certain possibilities and sets certain limitations.” —Maggie Scarf

“Ellis’ most recent writings propose that all emotional disturbance shares a single root: demandingness.” —Walen, DiGiuseppe, and Dryden, A Practitioner’s Guide to Rational Emotive Therapy, 2nd Edition, p. 129

“Enjoy present pleasures in such a way as not to injure future ones.” —Seneca

“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.” —Arthur Schopenhauer

“Every man without passions has within him no principle of action, nor motive to act.” —Claude Helvetius

“Every night before going to sleep, we must ask ourselves: what weakness did I overcome today? What virtue did I acquire?” —Seneca

“Everybody has their reasons.” —Pierre-Auguste Renoir

“Everyone in a complex system has a slightly different interpretation. The more interpretations we gather, the easier it becomes to gain a sense of the whole.” —Margaret J. Wheatley

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” —Victor E. Frankl (1905–1997), Austrian psychiatrist, Man’s Search for Meaning

“Experience is not what happens to you, it’s how you interpret what happens to you.” —Aldous Huxley

“For many years now I have had the quaint idea that all humans—yes, the whole six billion of them on this planet—are out of their fucking minds.” —Albert Ellis

“For since reason alone brings man to perfection, reason alone, when perfected, makes man happy.” —Seneca

“For who is he that shall hinder thee from being good and simple?” —Marcus Aurelius

“Frame your mind to mirth and merriment, which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.” —Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew

“Give people the right to be wrong. They will exercise this right whether you give it to them or not.” —Windy Dryden

“Give not over thy mind to heaviness, and afflict not thyself in thine own counsel.” —Ecclesiasticus 30:21

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Living one day at a time; accepting hardships as the pathway to peace; taking as He did, this world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right IF I surrender to His will; that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with Him, forever in the next.” —Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971)

“Happiness depends on ourselves.” —Aristotle

“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.” —Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910), Russian writer and philosopher

“Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.” —Dale Carnegie

“Happiness is an inside job.” —William Arthur Ward

“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” —Walt Disney

“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” —Francesca Reigle

“Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.” —Alice Meynell

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” —Ayn Rand

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” —Mahatma Gandhi

“Happy is the man who early learns the wide chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers.” —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“He who fears he will suffer, already suffers because he fears.” —Michel De Montaigne

“He who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear with almost any ‘how.’” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“He who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation.” —Machiavelli

“His own character is the arbiter of everyone’s fortune.” —Publius Syrus (42 B.C.)

“I am not a product of my circumstance, I am a product of my decisions.” —Steven Covey

“Identity is invariably false to facts.” —Alfred Korzybski

“If a person gave away your body to some passerby, you’d be furious. Yet, you hand over your mind to anyone who comes along, so they may abuse you, leaving it disturbed and troubled—have you no shame in that?” —Epictetus

“If my body is enslaved, still my mind is free.” —Sophocles

“If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it.” —Marcus Aurelius

“If we examine every disturbance we have, great or small, we will find at the root of it some unhealthy dependency and its consequent unhealthy demand.” —Bill W., AA Grapevine

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it: and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121–180), Roman philosopher and emperor

“If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.” —Wayne Dyer

“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” —Mary Engelbreit

“If you really want to be happy, nobody can stop you!” —Sister Mary Tricky

“If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another personality.” —Seneca

“If you would escape your troubles, you need not another place but another set of feeling, thinking, and behaving habits.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“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 and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 127

“If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.” —Richard Bach

“In order to be effective, you need not only virtue but also mental strength.” —Aristotle, Politics

“It’s in our biological and learned nature for people to fall back to their dysfunctional beliefs all their lives and not to be completely rational or functional.” —Albert Ellis

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.” —Epictetus

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” —Henry David Thoreau

“It all begins and ends in your mind. What you give power to, has power over you, if you allow it.” —Leon Brown

“It is impossible for you to be harmed by purely verbal or gestural attacks unless you specifically let yourself—or actually make yourself—be harmed.” —Albert Ellis

“It is much harder to live a life of freedom and self-rule than to be ruled by others.” —Mordechai Kaplan

“It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.” —Agnes Repplier

“It is not men’s acts which disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men’s ruling principles, but is our own opinions which disturb us.” —Marcus Aurelius

“It’s not what happens to you that matters. It’s how you respond to what happens that makes a difference.” —Zig Ziglar

“It is the power of the mind to be unconquerable.” —Seneca

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny.” —Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Learn to be indifferent to what makes no difference.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Let us not burden our remembrances with a heaviness that is gone.” —William Shakespeare

“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you handle what happens to you.” —Anonymous

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” —Viktor Frankl

“Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be.” —Grandma Moses

“Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.” —Epictetus

“Man can alter his life by altering his thinking.” —William James

“Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men. We are free agents, and man is more powerful than matter.” —Benjamin Disraeli

“Man is the artificer of his own happiness.” —Henry David Thoreau

“Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” —Helen Keller

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the principles and notions which they form concerning things.” —Epictetus

“Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.” —Epictetus, Greek Stoic philosopher

“Men’s happiness and unhappiness depend on their temperaments, no less than on fortune.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” —Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), American president

“Most people believe they see the world as it is. However, we really see the world as we are.” —Anonymous

“Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power.” —Seneca

“Much of what we call emotion is nothing more or less than a certain kind—a biased, prejudiced, or strongly evaluative kind—of thought.” —Albert Ellis

“My one fear is that I will not be worthy of my sufferings.” —Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky (1821–1881), Russian writer

“My third maxim was to endeavor always to conquer myself rather than fortune, and change my desires rather than the order of the world, and in general, accustom myself to the persuasion that, except our own thoughts, there is nothing absolutely in our power; so that when we have done our best in things external to us, all wherein we fail of success is to be held, as regards us, absolutely impossible: and this single principle seemed to me sufficient to prevent me from desiring for the future anything which I could not obtain, and thus render me contented” —René Descartes, Discourse on Method

“Necessity is not an established fact, but an interpretation.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (Compare to REBT on Shoulds)

“Needing leads to bleeding–to almost all inevitable suffering.” —Albert Ellis, Buddhism and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

“Negative thinking is the highest form of intelligence.” —Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), Indian philosopher, Commentaries on Living, Second Series, p. 71

“Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.” —Albert Ellis

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” —Eleanor Roosevelt

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.” —Mohandas K. Gandhi

“Nothing has meaning except for the meaning you give it.” —T. Harv Eker

“One who is too insistent on his own views, finds few to agree with him.” —Lao Tzu

“One who takes a calm and rational approach toward life.” —American Heritage dictionary definition of a philosopher

“One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844–1900), German philosopher

“Our emotions are the result of our beliefs.” —Lie Yukou

“Our life is what our thoughts make it.” —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, Book IV

“Our temperament decides the value of everything brought to us by fortune.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“Peace comes from within. Don’t seek it without.” —Buddha

“Peace is the result of retraining your mind to process life as it is, rather than as you think it should be.” —Wayne Dyer

“People and things do not upset us. Rather, we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.” —Albert Ellis

“People don’t just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness.” —Albert Ellis

“People got insights [psychoanalysis] into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.” —Albert Ellis

“Practice is everything.” —Periander, Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laërtius

“Practice then from the start to say to every harsh impression, ‘You are an impression, and not at all the thing you appear to be.’ Then examine it and test it by these rules you have, and firstly, and chiefly, by this: whether the impression has to do with the things that are up to us, or those that are not; and if it has to do with the things that are not up to us, be ready to reply, ‘It is nothing to me.’” —Epictetus

“Problems only exist in the human mind.” —Anthony de Mello

“Promise yourself to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.” —Christian Larson

“Put from you the belief that ‘I have been wronged,’ and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.” —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, Book IV

“REBT assumes that human thinking, emotion, and action are not really separate or disparate processes but that they all significantly overlap and are rarely experienced in a pure state.” —Albert Ellis

“REBT is a conscious practice of moving clients to achieve greater unconditional self-acceptance (USA), unconditional other-acceptance (UOA), and unconditional life-acceptance (ULA), which makes it superior to CBT and other therapies.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“REBT will lead to profound social concern because proving your trusted thoughts to be beneficial, constructive, and healthy will result in your personal and social attitudes also being constructive.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Rejection is unpleasant, but not deadly.” —Albert Ellis

“Remember that it is not he who reviles you or strikes you, who insults you, but it is your opinion about these things as being insulting. When then a man irritates you, you must know that it is your opinion which has irritated you.” —Epictetus, Enchiridion

“Resolve to dismiss thy judgment about an act as if it were something grievous and thy anger is gone.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Rough diamonds may sometimes be mistaken for worthless pebbles.” —Thomas Browne

“Rule your mind or it will rule you.” —Horace, Roman poet

“Some people are content in the midst of deprivation and danger, while others are miserable despite having all the luck in the world. This is not to say that external circumstances do not matter. But it is your mind, rather than circumstances themselves, that determines the quality of your life. Your mind is the basis of everything you experience and of every contribution you make to the lives of others. Given this fact, it makes sense to train it.” —Sam Harris

“Speak and act from unwise thoughts, and sorrow will follow you as surely as the wheel follows the ox who draws the cart. Speak and act from wise thoughts and happiness will follow you as closely as your shadow, unshakeable.” —Dhammapada

“Sticks and stones will break my bones but words will never hurt me.” —Nursery rhyme

“Strong feelings are fine; it’s the overreactions that mess us up.” —Albert Ellis

“Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Take away thy opinion, and then there is taken away the complaint.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Tell me one thing about the past. I’ll prove it’s not what upset you. It’s how you philosophized about it that made you disturbed.” —Albert Ellis

“That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.” —Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

“That which is evil to thee and harmful has its foundation only in the mind.” —Marcus Aurelius

“The ancestor of every action is a thought.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The answer lies within ourselves. If we can’t find peace and happiness there, it’s not going to come from the outside.” —Tenzin Palmo

“The appearance of things changes according to the emotions; and thus we see magic and beauty in them, while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.” —Kahlil Gibran, The Broken Wings

“The attitude of unconditional self-acceptance is probably the most important variable in their [addicts] long-term recovery.” —Albert Ellis

“The best way to define a man’s character would be to seek out the particular mental or moral attitude in which, when it came upon him, he felt most deeply and intensely active and alive.” —William James (1842–1910), American psychologist and 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

“The cause of the irritation is not in this person but in me.” —Anthony de Mello

“The condition and characteristic of a vulgar person is that he never expects either benefit or hurt from himself, but from externals. The condition and characteristic of a philosopher is that he expects all hurt and benefit from himself.” —Lucretius

“The depressed man lives in a depressed world.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)

“The description is not the described.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The fact is one thing and the idea about the fact is another.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The fault, Dear Brutus, is not in our stars; but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” —William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

“The goal isn’t to get rid of all your negative thoughts and feelings; that’s impossible. The goal is to change your response to them.” —Marcandangel

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.” —Martha Washington

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” —William James

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore guard accordingly; and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue, and reasonable nature.” —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“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, Reason and Emotion in Psychotherapy Revised

“The interpretation of our reality through patterns not our own, serves only to make us ever more unknown, ever less free, ever more solitary.” —Gabriel Garcia Marquez

“The gods have released you from accountability for your parents, your siblings, your body, your possessions—for death and for life itself. They made you responsible only for what is in your power—the proper use of impressions. So why take on the burden of matters which you cannot answer for? You are only making unnecessary problems for yourself.” —Epictetus

“The Judaic Foundations of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy: Rabbinical and Talmudic Underpinnings of CBT and REBT” by Ronald W. Pies MD

“The limits of my language are the limits of my world.” —Ludwig Wittgenstein

“The map is not the territory.” —Alfred Korzybski

“The mind is always deceived by the heart.” —François de La Rochefoucauld

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.” —John Milton (1608–1674), English poet

“The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.” —Voltaire

“The origin of sorrow is this: to wish for something that does not come to pass.” —Epictetus, Discourses

“The present non-aristotelian system is based on fundamental negative premises; namely, the complete denial of ‘identity.’” —Alfred Korzybski (1879–1950), Polish-born American philosopher, Science and Sanity, page 10

“The relish of good and evil depends in a great measure upon the opinion we have of them.” —Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–1592), French essayist

“The simple approach to improving your reactions and responses is to learn to feed your helpful thoughts and to starve out your unhelpful thoughts.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The thought is not the thing.” —Alfred Korzybski

“The thought is not the thing.” —J. Krishnamurti

“The trouble with most therapy is it helps you feel better. But you don’t get better. You have to back it up with action, action, action.” —Albert Ellis

“The uncontrolled mind is to us as an enemy on the battlefield.” —Krishna, to the Archer Arjuna, from The Bhagavad Gita

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” —Socrates

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things.” —Bertrand Russell (1872– 1970), British author, mathematician, and philosopher

“The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels.” —Hazrat Inayat Khan

“The world is what we make of it. We create our sorrows. If this is the case, why make problems for ourselves.” —Lie Yukon

“There is no misery unless there be something in the universe which he thinks miserable.” —Seneca

“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” —William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2

“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.” —Mark 7:15

“There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.” —David D. Burns

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.” —Epictetus

“There will always be suffering. But we must not suffer over the suffering.” —Alan Watts

“Things can never touch the soul, but stand inert outside it, so that disquiet can arise only from fancies within.” —Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, Book IV

“Things may happen around you, and things may happen to you, but the only things that matter are the things that happen in you.” —Eric Butterworth, Unity minister

“Think you can, think you can’t; either way, you’ll be right.” —Henry Ford

“Thou are injuring thyself, my child.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Thoughts are mightier than strength of hand.” —Sophocles, Phaedra

“Thus the negative perception is the triumph of consciousness.” —Alfred North Whitehead, 1861-1947: British mathematician and philosopher

“To be wronged is nothing unless you continue to remember it.” —Confucius

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” —Ecclesiastes 3:1

“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, Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

“To rule yourself is the ultimate power.” —Seneca

“To think positively about a negative situation is foolish. To think negatively and irrationally about that situation is unhealthy. To think negatively and rationally about the same situation is wise and healthy.” —Windy Dryden

“Today I have got out of all trouble, or rather I have cast out all trouble, for it was not outside, but within and in my opinions.” —Marcus Aurelius

“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

“Tragedy is in the eye of the observer, and not in the heart of the sufferer.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Turn your mind away from things which are not permanent.” —Majjhima Nikaya

“Unless one dream one’s finest dreams in solitude, unless one reach the point of being able to dispense with all human company, all distraction, all traffic with the world–even the companionship of great souls and first-rate minds–unless one be self-sufficient, finding the first and best entertainment within oneself, within the depth of one’s own person, one ought to sweep one’s claims to greatness into one’s pocket there accumulated, one ought to steal away out of the sacred presence of a nature to which one does not belong.” —Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832), German writer, poet, and scientist

“Untamed horses are useless, but horsemen can in a short time make them submissive and manageable. Can you not take and tame this thing which is not some beast from outside yourself but an irrational power within your soul, a dwelling it shares at every moment with your power of reason? Even if you cannot tame it quickly, can you not do so over a longer period of time? It would be a terrible thing if you could not.” —Galen, On The Passions

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions. Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become your character. And watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” —Saying developed over time

“We all have strength enough to bear the misfortunes of others.” —La Rochefoucauld

“We are more often frightened than hurt, and we suffer more from imagination than from reality.” —Seneca

“We are never as fortunate or unfortunate as we imagine.” —Francois de La Rochefoucauld

“We can actually put the essence of neurosis in a single word: blaming–or damning.” —Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper, A Guide to Rational Living, Third Edition, p. 127

“We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”― Dalai Lama XIV

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.” —Carlos Castaneda

“We must take care of our minds because we cannot benefit from beauty when our brains are missing.” —Euripides, fragment

“We often add to our pain and suffering by being overly sensitive, over-reacting to minor things, and sometimes taking things too personally.” —Dalai Lama

“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” —Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965), American-born British writer

“We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living.” —Thomas S. Szasz (1920–2012), Hungarian-born American psychiatrist

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.” —Seneca

“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

“What has always made a hell on earth is that man has tried to make it his heaven.” —Friedrich Holderlin

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.” —Viktor Frankl

“What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds.” —Wayne Dyer

“What you believe you experience.” —J. Krishnamurti, Commentaries on Living, Volume 1, p. 88

“Whatever a person frequently thinks and reflects on, that will become the inclination of their mind.” —Buddha

“Whatever you say something is–it is not.” —Alfred Korzybski

“When confronted with a situation which we cannot change, we are then challenged to change ourselves.” —Viktor Frankl

“When I am disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation–some fact of my life–unacceptable to me, and I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing, or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment.” —Alcoholics Anonymous, Third Edition (the Big Book), p. 449

“When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.” —Albert Ellis

“When people disturb themselves, they view ‘bad’ things as ‘awful’ or ‘terrible’ and think that they absolutely must not occur.” —Albert Ellis

“When thoughts arise, then do all things arise. When thoughts vanish, then do all things vanish.” —Huang Po

“When you correct your mind, everything else falls into place.” —Lao Tzu

“Whilst part of what we perceive comes through our senses from the objects around us, another part (and it may be the larger part) always comes out of our own head.” —William James

“Why should I have to be successful? Why should I always have to be accepted and approved? Why should I be utterly loved and adored? Who said so?” —Albert Ellis

“With our thoughts, we make the world.” —Gautama Buddha

“Words are the physicians of a mind diseased.” —Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound

“You always own the option of having no opinion. There is never any need to get worked up or to trouble your soul about things you can’t control. These things are not asking to be judged by you. Leave them alone.” ―Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“You can only be a ‘victim’ of yourself. It’s all how you discipline your mind.” —Epictetus

“You can’t step into the same river twice.” —Heraclitus

“You have power over your mind, not outside events. Realize this and you find strength.” ―Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

“You mainly feel the way you think.” —Albert Ellis, voted the second most influential psychologist of all time by the American Psychological Association (APA)

“You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.” —Maya Angelou

“You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.” —Albert Ellis, Buddhism and Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy

“You will continue to suffer if you have an emotional reaction to everything that is said to you. True power is sitting back and observing things with logic. True power is restraint. If words control you that means everyone else can control you. Breathe and allow things to pass.” —Bruce Lee

“You will learn that men have chosen their own troubles.” —Pythagoras

“You’re only a victim to the degree of what your perception allows.” —Shannon L. Alder

“Your attitude is like a box of crayons that color your world.” —Allen Klein

“Your own mind is a sacred enclosure into which nothing harmful can enter except by your permission.” —Arnold Bennett

“Your mind will take the shape of what you frequently hold in thought, for the human spirit is colored by such impressions.” —Marcus Aurelius

“Your philosophy determines whether you will go for the disciplines or continue the errors.” —Jim Rohn

“Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.” —Buddha

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Aphorisms Collected

Listed Alphabetically

“An angry man never wants for woe.” —Aphorism
“Attitude is everything.” —Aphorism
“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” —Aphorism
“Bite the bullet.” —Aphorism
“Choose to choose.” —Aphorism from Existential philosophy
“Happiness is a choice.” —Aphorism
“Happiness is a state of mind.” —Aphorism
“It all depends on how you look at it.” —Aphorism
“Life is what you make it.” —Aphorism
“One man’s pleasure is another man’s poison.” —Aphorism
“Out of sight, out of mind.” —Aphorism
“Take it easy.” —Aphorism
“The glass is half empty or half full depending on your attitude.” —Aphorism
“The loss that is unknown is no loss at all.” —Aphorism
“Things are not what they seem.” “Things are never what they look like.” “Things are not as they appear.” “Things are never what they first appear to be.” —Aphorism stated in many forms and styles
“Things never turn out the way you think they will.” —Aphorism
“Time heals all wounds.” —Aphorism
“Trouble brings experience and experience wisdom.” —Aphorism
“Unminded, unmoaned.” —Aphorism
“Unseen, unruled.” —Aphorism
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” —Aphorism
“What you don’t know can’t hurt you.” —Aphorism
“Where there is a will, there is a way.” —Aphorism
“You do not have to dig up a tree’s roots in order to help it.” —Aphorism

Quotations from Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

Listed Alphabetically

“Because it should be—it does not follow that it must be.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Change your philosophy, change your life.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Cognitive psychotherapy boils down to learning the habit of looking for and uprooting self-disturbing thinking whenever you notice you are disturbed.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Cognitive psychotherapy can be understood as forcing yourself to face the negative consequences of some negative thinking until you make such negative thinking, not an option.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Disputing is making allergic.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Disputing is making aversive.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Do you feel that because you think it or because you experience it? Do you know the difference? How?” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“If you act stupid, you will no more become stupid than if you bark like a dog, you will become a dog.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Instead of trying and failing, choose either to experiment or practice.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Mind over matter only mind doesn’t matter. Mind over matter; only mind is matter. Mind over matter, only mind is the matter.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Neuroplasticity is the biological basis for CBT.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“REBT and CBT are concerned with the nature of thought and thinking like philosophy and also with the nature of emotions and behaviors like psychology, which means they integrate and benefit from both.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The higher passions should rule reason, and the lower passions should be ruled by reason.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“The over-examined life is not worth living.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“There is only one thing in the world that can be reduced to an opinion–an opinion–not you, them, things, or life.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

“Thinking about a stimulus causes a response to that stimulus.” —Kevin Everett FitzMaurice

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Quotations from Scripture

“All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the Lord weigheth the spirits.” —Proverbs 16:2

“Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good.” —Isaiah 7:15

“But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.” —Matthew 5:39

“Eat thou not the bread of him that hath an evil eye, neither desire thou his dainty meats: for as he thinketh in his heart, so is he: Eat and drink, saith he to thee; but his heart is not with thee.” —Proverbs 23: 6-7

“Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?” —Matthew 7:16

“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.” —Matthew 7:20

“There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man.”—Mark 7:15

“For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.” —John 3:20

“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;” —II Corinthians 10:5

“But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.” —Ephesians 5:13

“Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” —Philippians 4:8

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.” —I Thessalonians 5:21

“Believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God.” —I John 4:1

Read and discover how CBT, REBT, & Stoicism evolved into one system: STPHFR.

Related Fast-Facts

Read for the best diagrams and maps of how people play games with your mind.

Related Pages of Free Information

Read and discover the best diagrams and maps of how people control and manipulate you.

Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.

6 Groups of Topics Menu

Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.

10 Skills & Topics Menu

Read and master the life skill of acceptance using the best combination of CBT, REBT, & Stoicism.

Quotations: Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) & REBT