People and things do not upset us. Rather, we upset ourselves by believing that they can upset us.

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

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.

Many psychoanalysts refused to let me speak at their meetings. They were exceptionally vigorous because I had previously been an analyst and they were very angry at my flying the coop.

People are terrified of other people or difficult projects because they tell themselves that they could fail or be rejected. Failure can lead to sorrow, regret, frustration and annoyance - all healthy, negative feelings without which people couldn't exist. But then they add, "I absolutely must succeed and must be loved by significant persons, and if I don't, it's terrible and I'm no good." Those are irrational beliefs. As long as people keep them, they'll be terrified of life and will put themselves down when they get rejected.

The emotionally mature individual should completely accept the fact that we live in a world of probability and chance, where there are not, nor probably ever will be, any absolute certainties, and should realize that it is not at all horrible, indeed—such a probabilistic, uncertain world.

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