Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. Happiness is experienced largely in striving towards a goal, not in having attained things, because our nature is always to want to go on to the next endeavor.

I think it's unfair, but they have the right as fallible, screwed-up humans to be unfair; that's the human condition.

Most things worth having require some sacrifice, usually more than you expect.

If people stopped looking on their emotions as ethereal, almost inhuman processes, and realistically viewed them as being largely composed of perceptions, thoughts, evaluations, and internalized sentences, they would find it quite possible to work calmly and concertedly at changing them.

Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world.

We can't change the past, so we change how people are thinking, feeling and behaving today.

I started to call myself a rational therapist in 1955; later I used the term rational emotive. Now I call myself a rational emotive behavior therapist.