I thought foolishly that Freudian psychoanalysis was deeper and more intensive than other, more directive forms of therapy, so I was trained in it and practiced it. Then I found that it intensively went into every irrelevancy under the sun - and that it didn't work. People got insights into what was bothering them, but they hardly did a damn thing to change.

You never truly need what you want. That is the main and thoroughgoing key to serenity.

When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.

There's no evidence whatsoever that men are more rational than women or that men are more willing to surrender their irrational beliefs. Both sexes seem to be equally irrational.

We teach people that they upset themselves. 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 January 1955; later I used the term "rational emotive." Now I call myself a "rational emotive behavior therapist." But from the start, I always included philosophic techniques as well as experiential, emotional and behavioral techniques.

You largely constructed your depression. It wasn't given to you. Therefore, you can deconstruct it.