Wilfred Bion Quotes

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

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 If it is 'known' by patient and analyst, it is obsolete....The only point of importance in any session is the unknown.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.

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

It is very important to be aware that you may never be satistied with your analytic career if you feel that you are restricted to what is narrowly called a ‘scientific’ approach. You will have to be able to have a chance of feeling that the interpretation you give is a beautiful one, or that you get a beautiful response from the patient. This aesthetic element of beauty makes a very difficult situation tolerable.

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.

Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom.

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.

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

A good leader makes a good follower.

The end of a dissolute life is a desperate death.

Wealth is the sinews of affairs.

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

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.

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

The road to Hades is easy to travel.

Old age is the harbor of all ills.