W Bion Quotes & Sayings

Wealth is the sinews of success. — Bion Of Borysthenes

The boys throw rocks at the frogs in jest. But the frogs die in earnest. — Wilfred Bion

Misers take care of property as if it belonged to them, but derive no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others. — Wilfred Bion

If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since known, but till then scattered and seemingly foreign to each other, and suddenly introduce order where the appearance of disorder reigned. — Wilfred Bion

Old age is the harbor of all ills. — Wilfred Bion

Wealth is the sinews of affairs. — Wilfred Bion

We ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that we all hope to reach it. — Wilfred Bion

Fragment of the Elegy on the Death of Bion
From the Greek of Moschus
Published from the Hunt manuscripts by Forman, "Poetical Works of P. B. S.", 1876.
Ye Dorian woods and waves, lament aloud,
Augment your tide, O streams, with fruitless tears,
For the beloved Bion is no more.
Let every tender herb and plant and flower,
From each dejected bud and drooping bloom,
Shed dews of liquid sorrow, and with breath
Of melancholy sweetness on the wind
Diffuse its languid love; let roses blush,
Anemones grow paler for the loss
Their dells have known; and thou, O hyacinth,
Utter thy legend now - yet more, dumb flower,
Than 'Ah! alas!' - thine is no common grief
Bion the [sweetest singer] is no more.
NOTE:
_2 tears]sorrow (as alternative) Hunt manuscript — Percy Bysshe Shelley

Of all evil things the least quantity is to be borne, but of learning and knowledge, the more a man hath, the better he can bear it. — Wilfred Bion

Good slaves are free, but bad free men are slaves of many passions. — Bion Of Borysthenes

It hurts the bald-head just as much as the thatched-head to have his hairs plucked. — Bion Of Borysthenes

Just as the good actor perform well whatever role the poet assigns, so too must the good man perform whatever Fortune assigns. For she, says Bion, just like a poet, sometimes assigns the leading role, sometimes that of the supporting role; sometimes that of a king, sometimes that of a beggar. Do not, therefore, being a supporting actor, desire the role of the lead. — Bion Of Borysthenes

Love of money is the mother-city (metropolis) of all evils. — Bion Of Borysthenes

The purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire. — Wilfred Bion

It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated as much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating and communicating thought. — Wilfred Bion

He came to believe that, in addition to getting rid of parts of the self, projective identification was sometimes the only way in which some very fragmented patients could communicate. The problem lay in recognising, understanding and making sense of what was being communicated by the patient, in such a way that the patient could better understand what was happening in his internal world. Before any of this can happen, however, the therapist has to be capable of receiving, and holding on to (that is, containing) 'inside of himself what the patient has projected into him. These unprocessed, raw, fragmented, and sometimes 'unthinkable' thoughts and feelings were called by Bion, 'Beta Elements', and the capacity to process and think about them, was referred to as 'Alpha Function'. It follows from this that an increase in Alpha Function will also lead to a greater capacity in the therapist to contain and manage stress. — Ved P. Varma

Jest with your equals. — Bion Of Smyrna

Happy is love or friendship when returned
The lovers whose pure flames have equal burned. — Bion Of Smyrna

Beauty is a possession not our own. — Bion Of Smyrna

The end of a dissolute life is most commonly a desperate death. — Bion Of Smyrna

Wisdom or oblivion - take your choice. From that warfare there is no release. — Wilfred R. Bion

Bion insisted on the principle that The property of friends is common. — Bion Of Borysthenes

Every session attended by the analyst must have no history and no future. What is 'known' about the patient is of no further consequence: it is either false or irrelevant. If it is 'known' by patient and analyst, it is obsolete ... The only point of importance in any session is the unknown. Nothing must be allowed to distract from intuiting that. In any session, evolution takes place. Out of the darkness and formlessness something evolves. — Wilfred Bion

To dare to be aware of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage. — Wilfred Bion

To be unable to bear an ill is itself a great ill. — Wilfred Bion

The downside of attending to the emotional life of groups is that it can swamp the ability to get anything done; a group can become more concerned with satisfying its members than with achieving its goals. Bion identified several ways that groups can slide into pure emotion - they can become "groups for pairing off," in which members are mainly interested in forming romantic couples or discussing those who form them; they can become dedicated to venerating something, continually praising the object of their affection (fan groups often have this characteristic, be they Harry Potter readers or followers of the Arsenal soccer team), or they can focus too much on real or perceived external threats. Bion trenchantly observed that because external enemies are such spurs to group solidarity, some groups will anoint paranoid leaders because such people are expert at identifying external threats, thus generating pleasurable group solidarity even when the threats aren't real. — Clay Shirky

The road to Hades is easy to travel; at any rate men pass away with their eyes shut. — Bion Of Borysthenes

Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom. — Wilfred Bion

The end of a dissolute life is a desperate death. — Wilfred Bion

The road to Hades is easy to travel. — Wilfred Bion