Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.
Albert EllisRead
Attempts to help humans eliminate all self-ratings and views self-esteem as a self-defeating concept that encourages them to make conditional evaluations of self. Instead, it teaches people unconditional self-acceptance.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes the importance of unconditional self-acceptance over conditional self-esteem.
In this quote, Albert Ellis critiques the idea of self-esteem that is contingent on external evaluations or achievements. He argues that such conditional self-assessments can lead to a self-defeating mindset, suggesting that true personal growth comes from accepting oneself without conditions, fostering a healthier and more resilient self-image.
Themes
Self-AcceptanceSelf-EsteemConditionalEvaluationPersonal Growth
In practice
Example use cases
A motivational speaker might use this quote to highlight the need for self-acceptance during a workshop.
More from Albert Ellis
All quotes βReligious creeds encourage some of the craziest kinds of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and favor severe manifestations of neurosis, borderline personality states, and sometimes even psychosis.
Albert EllisRead
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 EllisRead
If you would stop, really stop, damning yourself, others, and unkind conditions, you would find it almost impossible to upset yourself emotionally - about anything. Yes, anything.
Albert EllisRead
The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.
Albert EllisRead
By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.
Albert EllisRead
Similar quotes
Hope is not wishful thinking. It's not a temperament we're born with. It is a stance toward life that we can choose...not not. The real question for me, though, is whether m hope is effective, whether it produces or is just where I hide to ease my own pain.
Frances Moore LappRead
The single most important tool to being in balance is knowing that you and you alone are responsible for the imbalance between what you dream your life is meant to be, and the daily habits that drain life from that dream.
Wayne DyerRead
Everything you do is right, nothing you do is wrong, yet you must still make ceaseless effort.
Shunryu SuzukiRead
Perhaps this sounds very simple, but simple things are always the most difficult. In actual life it requires the greatest discipline to be simple, and the acceptance of oneself is the essence of the moral problem and the epitome of a whole outlook upon life.
Carl JungRead
And when I read, and really I do not read so much, only a few authors, - a few men that I discovered by accident - I do this because they look at things in a broader, milder and more affectionate way than I do, and because they know life better, so that I can learn from them.
Vincent Van GoghRead
Some people believe holding on and hanging in there are signs of great strength. However, there are times when it takes much more strength to know when to let go and then do it.
Ann LandersRead