There are three musts that hold us back: "I must do well. You must treat me well. And the world must be easy." And I sometimes think that as long as we keep the second must, which is socially learned, then some screwballs 100 years from now will manufacture atomic bombs in their bathtub and maybe annihilate the whole human race because they demand that the rest of the world must agree with their dogmas. When we don't agree, they may zap us.

Eating is always a decision, nobody forces your hand to pick up food and put it into your mouth.

If I had been a member of the academic establishment, I could have done other experiments.

Failure doesn't have anything to do with your intrinsic value as a person.

The goal...is not to change your desires and wishes but to persuade you to stop demanding that you absolutely must have what you wish-from yourself, from others, and from the world. You can by all means keep your wishes, preferences, and desires, but unless you prefer to remain needlessly anxious, not your grandiose demands.

Worrying about dying will hardly help you live.

Neurosis is just a high-class word for whining.