Alfred Adler
36 quotes
Biography
Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. His emphasis on the importance of feelings of belonging, relationships within the family, and birth order set him apart from Freud and others in their common circle.
"The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions."
"The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking to bring his pupil to experience this power."
"No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our experiences, so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes."
"Trust only movement. Life happens at the level of events, not of words. Trust movement."
"The striving for significance, this sense of yearning, always points out to us that all psychological phenomena contain a movement that starts from a feeling of inferiority and reach upward. The theory of Individual Psychology of psychological compensation states that the stronger the feeling of inferiority, the higher the goal for personal power."
"Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations."
"It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them."
"Man knows much more than he understands."
"Nietzsche's "will to power" and "will to seem" embrace many of our views, which again resemble in some respects the views of Féré and the older writers, according to whom the sensation of pleasure originates in a feeling of power, that of pain in a feeling of feebleness."
"The Adlerians, in the name of “individual psychology,” take the side of society against the individual. ... Adler’s later thought succumbs to the worst of his earlier banalization. It is conventional, practical, and moralistic. “Our science ... is based on common sense.” Common sense, the half-truths of a deceitful society, is honored as the honest truths of a frank world."
"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."
"In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always suspect an opponent, and note who suffers most because of the patient's condition. Usually this is a member of the family."
"Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance."
"Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy."
"God who is eternally complete, who directs the stars, who is the master of fates, who elevates man from his lowliness to Himself, who speaks from the cosmos to every single human soul, is the most brilliant manifestation of the goal of perfection."
"The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul."
"It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country."
"The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul."
"War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man."
"The test of one's behavior pattern is their relationship to society, relationship to work and relationship to sex."
"The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul."
"The test of one's behavior pattern is their relationship to society, relationship to work and relationship to sex."
"A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous."
"The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth."
"Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance."