Alfred Adler Quotes & Sayings

It is well known that those who do not trust themselves never trust others. — Alfred Adler

He used to say to his melancholia patients:
You can be cured in fourteen days if you follow this prescription.Try to think every day how you can please someone. — Alfred Adler

Follow your heart but take your brain with you. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

The mathematical life of a mathematician is short. Work rarely improves after the age of twenty-five or thirty. If little has been accomplished by then, little will ever be accomplished. — Alfred Adler

The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth. — Alfred Adler

Violence as a way of gaining power ... is being camouflaged under the guise of tradition, national honor [and] national security ... — Alfred Adler

Each generation has its few great mathematicians, and mathematics would not even notice the absence of the others. They are useful as teachers, and their research harms no one, but it is of no importance at all. A mathematician is great or he is nothing. — Alfred Adler

To be human means to feel inferior. — Alfred Adler

In the company of friends, writers can discuss their books, economists the state of the economy, lawyers their latest cases, and businessmen their latest acquisitions, but mathematicians cannot discuss their mathematics at all. And the more profound their work, the less understandable it is. — Alfred Adler

Man knows much more than he understands. — Alfred Adler

Seeing with the eyes of another, listening with the ears of another, and feeling with the heart of another. — Alfred Adler

A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

A private meaning is in fact no meaning at all. Meaning is only possible in communication: a word which meant something to one person only would really be meaningless. It is the same with our aims and actions; their only meaning is their meaning for others. Every human being strives for significance; but people always make mistakes if they do not see that their whole significance must consist in their contribution to the lives of others. An — Alfred Adler

My difficulties belong to me! — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority. — Alfred Adler

To see with the eyes of another, to hear with the ears of another, to feel with the heart of another. For the time being, this seems to me an admissible definition of what we call social feeling. — Alfred Adler

Mathematics is pure language - the language of science. It is unique among languages in its ability to provide precise expression for every thought or concept that can be formulated in its terms. — Alfred Adler

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. — Alfred Adler

It is one of the triumphs of human wit ... to conquer by humility and submissiveness ... to make oneself small in order to appear great ... such ... are often the expedients of the neurotic. — Alfred Adler

Follow your heart always, and remember to take your head along with you. — Alfred Adler

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 humanity. — Alfred Adler

Tears and complaints - the means which I have called water power - can be an extremely useful weapon for disturbing cooperation and reducing other to a condition of slavery. — Alfred Adler

The goal of the human soul is conquest, perfection, security, superiority. — Alfred Adler

Every pampered child becomes a hated child ... There is no greater evil than the pampering of children. — Alfred Adler

The only worthwhile achievements of man are those which are socially useful. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

We must never neglect the patient's own use of his symptoms. — Alfred Adler

We are self-determined by the meaning we give to our experiences; and there is probably something of a mistake always involved when we take particular experiences as the basis for our future life. Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations. There — Alfred Adler

It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes. — Alfred Adler

We cannot say that if a child is badly nourished he will become a criminal. We must see what conclusion the child has drawn. — Alfred Adler

There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow. — Alfred Adler

My psychology belongs to everyone. — Alfred Adler

Overcoming difficulties leads to courage, self-respect, and knowing yourself. — Alfred Adler

Men of genius are admired, men of wealth are envied, men of power are feared; but only men of character are trusted. — Alfred Adler

To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman. — Alfred Adler

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

There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish. — Alfred Adler

Distorted history boasts of bellicose glory ... and seduces the souls of boys to seek mystical bliss in bloodshed and in battles. — Alfred Adler

It was only because men learned to cooperate that we could make the great discovery of the division of labor; a discovery which is the chief security for the welfare of mankind. To preserve human life would not be possible if each individual attempted to wrest a living from the earth by himself with no cooperation and no results of cooperation in the past. Through the division of labor we can use the results of many different kinds of training and organize many different abilities so that all of them contribute to the common welfare and guarantee relief from insecurity and increased opportunity for all the members of society. It — Alfred Adler

There is no thing as a man who does not create mathematics and yet is a fine mathematics teacher. Textbooks, course material-these do not approach in importance the communication of what mathematics is really about, of where it is going, and of where it currently stands with respect to the specific branch of it being taught. What really matters is the communication of the spirit of mathematics. It is a spirit that is active rather than contemplative-a spirit of disciplined search for adventures of the intellect. Only as adventurer can really tell of adventures. — Alfred Adler

To injure another person through atonement is one of the most subtle devices of the neurotic, as when, for example, he indulges in self-accusations. — Alfred Adler

Play is a child's work and this is not a trivial pursuit. — Alfred Adler

War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

This quote begins here. A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view. This quote ends here. — Alfred Adler

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy. — Alfred Adler

Nobody adopts antisocial behaviour unless they fear that they will fail if they remain on the social side of life. — Alfred Adler

There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure. — Alfred Adler

To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation. — Alfred Adler

We limit ourselves to normal cases of mutual influence, we find that those people are most capable of being influenced who are most amenable to reason and logic, those whose social feeling has been least distorted. On the contrary, those who thirst for superiority and desire domination are very difficult to influence. Observation teaches us this fact every day. — Alfred Adler

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions. — Alfred Adler

What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live! — Alfred Adler

A fight with a child is always a losing fight: he can never be beaten or won to cooperation by fighting. In these struggles the weakest always carries the day. Something is demanded of him which he refuses to give; something which can never be gained by such means. An incalculable amount of tension and useless effort would be spared in this world if we realized that cooperation and love can never be won by force. — Alfred Adler

The human mind shows an urge to capture into fixed forms through unreal assumptions, that is, fictions, that which is chaotic, always in flux, and incomprehensible. Serving this urge, the child quite generally uses a scheme in order to act and to find his way. We proceed much the same when we divide the earth by meridians and parallels, for only thus do we obtain fixed points which we can bring into a relationship with one another. — Alfred Adler

We are not determined by our experiences, but are self-determined by the meaning we give to them; and when we take particular experiences as the basis for our future life, we are almost certain to be misguided to some degree. Meanings are not determined by situations. We determine ourselves by the meanings we ascribe to situations. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

What is courage? Courage is the willingness to risk failure ... There is only one danger I find in life, and that, indeed, is a real one. You may take too many precautions. — Alfred Adler

War is organized murder and torture against our brothers. — Alfred Adler

We learn in friendship to look with the eyes of another person, to listen with her ears, and to feel with her heart. — Alfred Adler

It is very obvious that we are not influenced by "facts"
but by our interpretation of the facts. — Alfred Adler

What person, confined in a small room with nothing but a tea-cosy, will not eventually put the tea-cosy on their head? — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

I am grateful for the idea that has used me. — Alfred Adler

There is only one reason for an individual to side-step to the useless side : the fear of a defeat on the useful side. — Alfred Adler

You can be healed of depression if every day you begin the first thing in the morning to consider how you will bring a real joy to someone else. — Alfred Adler

It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country. — Alfred Adler

These three ties, therefore, set three problems: how to find an. occupation which will enable us to survive under the limitations set by the nature of the earth; how to find a position among our fellows, so that we may cooperate and share the benefits of cooperation; how to accommodate ourselves to the fact that we live in two sexes and that the continuance and furtherance of mankind depends upon our love-life. Individual — Alfred Adler

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

The neurotic is nailed to the cross of his fiction. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

a woman who contributes to the life of mankind by the occupation of motherhood is taking as high a place in the division of human labor as anyone else could take. If she is interested in the lives of her children and is paving the way for them to become fellow men, if she is spreading their interests and training them to cooperate, her work is so valuable that it can never be rightly rewarded. In our own culture the work of a mother is undervalued and often regarded as a not very attractive or estimable occupation. It is paid only indirectly and a woman who makes it her main occupation is generally placed in a position of economic dependence. The success of the family, however, rests equally upon the work of the mother and the work of the father. Whether the mother keeps house or works independently, her work as a mother does not play a lower role than the work of her husband. — Alfred Adler

A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt as dangerous. — Alfred Adler

Everything can always be different! — Alfred Adler

More important than innate disposition, objective experience, and environment is the subjective evaluation of these. Furthermore, this evaluation stands in a certain, often strange, relation to reality. — Alfred Adler

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. — Alfred Adler

We only regard those unions as real examples of love and real marriages in which a fixed and unalterable decision has been taken. If men or women contemplate an escape, they do not collect all their powers for the task. In none of the serious and important tasks of life do we arrange such a "getaway." We cannot love and be limited. — Alfred Adler

If you wish to educate a child who has gone wrong, then you must, above all, keep your attention fixed on the intersection of two charmed circles. — Alfred Adler

An educator's most important task, one might say his holy duty, is to see to it that no child is discouraged at school, and that a child who enters school already discouraged regains his self-confidence through his school and his teacher. This goes hand in hand with the vocation of the educator, for education is possible only with children who look hopefully and joyfully upon the future. — Alfred Adler

Every neurotic is partly in the right. — Alfred Adler

All failures are so because they lack social interest. — Alfred Adler

If I didn't have this affliction, I would be the first. As a rule the if-clause contains an unfulfillable condition, or the patient's own arrangement, which only he can change. — Alfred Adler

We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority. — Alfred Adler

Courage is not an ability one either possess or lacks. Courage is the willingness to engage in a risk-taking behavior regardless of whether the consequences are unknown or possibly adverse. We are capable of courageous behavior provided we are willing to engage in it. Given that life offers few guarantees, all living requires risk-taking. — Alfred Adler

It is easy to believe that life is long and one's gifts are vast
easy at the beginning, that is. But the limits of life grow more evident; it becomes clear that great work can be done rarely, if at all. — Alfred Adler

It is the individual who is not interested in his fellow men who has the greatest difficulties in life and provides the greatest injury to others. It is fro+m among such individuals that all human failures spring. — Alfred Adler

All failures - neurotics, psychotics, criminals, drunkards, problem children, suicides, perverts, and prostitutes - are failures because they are lacking in social interest — Alfred Adler

The test of one's behavior pattern is their relationship to society, relationship to work and relationship to sex. — Alfred Adler

The self-bound individual always forgets that his self would be safeguarded better and automatically the more he prepares himself for the welfare of mankind, and that in this respect no limits are set for him. — Alfred Adler

The widespread belief that Yuppies as a class would perish from Brie-cheese poisoning turned out to be over-optimistic. — Alfred Adler

The style of life is a unity because it has grown out of the difficulties of early life and out of the striving for a goal. — Alfred Adler