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

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

By not caring too much about what people think, I'm able to think for myself and propagate ideas which are very often unpopular. And I succeed.
Albert Ellis

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency.
Albert Ellis

Freud had a gene for inefficiency, and I think I have a gene for efficiency.
Albert Ellis

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

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.
Albert Ellis

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

I hope to die in the saddle seat.
Albert Ellis

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


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

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.
Albert Ellis

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

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

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

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

If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.
Albert Ellis

If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic.
Albert Ellis

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

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