Reality is not so much what happens to us; rather, it is how we think about those events that create the reality we experience. In a very real sense, this means that we each create the reality in which we live.

This, perhaps, goes to show that conditional self-esteem, as I have said for many years, is an insidious, real sickness, so much so that even Buddhists carelessly sneak it in and sometimes encourage their clients to achieve it.

For that again, is what all manner of religion essentially is: childish dependency. If something is irrational, that means it won't work. It's usually unrealistic. People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. People have motives and thoughts of which they are unaware. Rational beliefs bring us closer to getting good results in the real world. Self-esteem is the greatest sickness known to man or woman because it's conditional. The art of love is largely the art of persistence.

As a matter of fact, as a result of my philosophy, I wasn't even upset about Hitler. I was willing to go to war to knock him off, but I didn't hate him. I hated what he was doing.

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 the future of psychotherapy and psychology is in the school system. We need to teach every child how to rarely seriously disturb himself or herself and how to overcome disturbance when it occurs.

Is self-esteem a sickness? That's according to the way you define it. In the usual way it is defined by people and by psychologists, I'd say that it is probably the greatest emotional disturbance known to man and woman.