Alfred Adler Quotes

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

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.

Follow your heart but take your brain with you.

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

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

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.

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

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!

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

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!

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.

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

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.

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.

Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.

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

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.

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

My difficulties belong to me!

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.

To be human means to feel inferior.

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

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

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

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