Alfred Adler Quotes

The task of therapy is not to eliminate suffering, but to give a voice to it, to find a form in which it can be expressed.

To be a human being means to be in a relationship. We cannot exist in isolation.

You don’t need a reason to help people.

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

Imperfection is not our personal problem—it’s a natural part of existing.

Life happens from us, not to us.

The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.

The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not?

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words.

It is easier to fight for one’s principles than to live up to them.

The science of the mind may be compared to a vast ocean, whose shores we explore only at some points and then only on the surface, as everything else remains hidden below.

The task of self-awareness is not to get out of one’s own problems, but to learn to grow with them.

One of the tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.

I am thankful that life is not like school where we are taught a lesson and then tested to see if we have learned.

Alfred Adler Quotes part 2

Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals.

The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.

Every problem is an opportunity in disguise.

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself. Imitation is suicide.

Death is really a great blessing for humanity, without it there could be no real progress. People who lived for ever would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative.

Imagination is more important than knowledge.

A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow.

We do not learn from experience… we learn from reflecting on experience.

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.

Humans are not born with a sense of self, but rather develop a sense of self through the social process of identifying with others.

The feeling of inferiority rules the mental life and can be clearly recognized in the sense of incompleteness and unfulfillment, and in the uninterrupted struggle both of individuals and human communities to become superior.

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, to choose one’s own way.

We must be our own before we can be another’s.

Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology, which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it.

The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn and change.

Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations.

The hell to be endured hereafter, of which theology tells, is no worse than the hell we make for ourselves in this world by habitually fashioned our characters in the wrong way: hence, egoism, lust, falsehood, treachery, violence, cruelty, greed, and negligence.

The style of life is a unity because it has grown out of the necessities and possibilities of the individual as organized in that environment.

We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.

Our world revolves around people. If we befriend them, we find success.

We should not be influenced by what is around us, but we should build our own environment.

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

There is no such thing as talent.

All men, regardless of their momentary disadvantage, have an intrinsic goal in life.

Systems of philosophy based on psychology and psychiatry come and go. They are all expressions of our needs, and all must change as our needs change.

You cannot call yourself free until you can control your own thoughts.

If you don’t do your part, don’t blame God.

Man knows much more than he understands.

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt to be dangerous.

The only normal people are the ones you don’t know very well.

I am thankful that life is not like school where we are taught a lesson and then tested to see if we have learned.

Death is really a great blessing for humanity, without it there could be no real progress. People who lived for ever would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative.

Trust yourself. Think for yourself. Act for yourself. Speak for yourself. Be yourself.

Imperfection is not our personal problem—it’s a natural part of existing.