By honestly acknowledging your past errors, but never damning yourself for them, you can learn to use your past for your own future benefit.

I had used eclectic therapy and behavior therapy on myself at the age of 19 to get over my fear of public speaking and of approaching young women in public.

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.

People don't just get upset. They contribute to their upsetness. They always have the power to think, and to think about their thinking, and to think about thinking about their thinking, which the goddamn dolphin, as far as we know, can't do. Therefore they have much greater ability to change themselves than any other animal has.

Whining about your own, others', or the world's failings is a main element in what we usually call neurosis.

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. In that sense, psychotherapy belongs in the schools.

The individual is taught that there is nothing that he as a total person is to feel ashamed of or self-hating for.