Alfred Adler
Title: Dr. Alfred W. Adler
Full Name: Alfred W. Adler
Birthdate: February 7, 1870
Birthplace: Rudolfsheim, Austria-Hungary (Present-day Rudolfsheim-Fünfhaus, Vienna, Austria)
Date of Death: May 28, 1937
Occupation: Physician and Psychologist
Profile: Regarded as one of the leading influences of modern psychology. Best known as the founder of Alderian (Individual) Psychology.
Website: http://www.alfredadler.org/
Number of Quotes: 34
A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
A simple rule in dealing with those who are hard to get along with is to remember that this
person is striving to assert his superiority; and you must deal with him from that point of view.
Death is really a great blessing for humanity, without it there could be no real progress. People who lived for ever
would not only hamper and discourage the young, but they would themselves lack sufficient stimulus to be creative.
Every individual acts and suffers in accordance with his peculiar teleology,
which has all the inevitability of fate, so long as he does not understand it.
Every therapeutic cure, and still more, any awkward attempt to show the patient the truth, tears him from
the cradle of his freedom from responsibility and must therefore reckon with the most vehement resistance.
Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.
God who is eternally complete, who directs the stars, who is the master of fates, who elevates man from his lowliness to
Himself, who speaks from the cosmos to every single human soul, is the most brilliant manifestation of the goal of perfection.
In the investigation of a neurotic style of life, we must always suspect an opponent, and note
who suffers most because of the patient's condition. Usually this is a member of the family.
It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
It is easy to believe that life is long and one's gifts are vast - easy at the beginning, that is. But
the limits of life grow more evident; it becomes clear that great work can be done rarely, if at all.
It is one of the most effective attitudes of the neurotic to measure thumbs down, so to
speak, a real person by an ideal, since in doing so he can depreciate him as much as he wishes.
It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country.
Man knows much more than he understands.
Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the meanings we give to situations.
My difficulties belong to me!
No experience is a cause of success or failure. We do not suffer from the shock of our
experiences, so-called trauma - but we make out of them just what suits our purposes.
Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.
The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
The educator must believe in the potential power of his pupil, and he must employ all his art in seeking to bring his pupil to experience this power.
The greater the feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more
powerful is the urge to conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
The neurotic is nailed to the cross of his fiction.
The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
The science of the mind can only have for its proper goal the understanding of human
nature by every human being, and through its use, brings peace to every human soul.
The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth.
There is a law that man should love his neighbor as himself. In a few hundred years it should be as
natural to mankind as breathing or the upright gait; but if he does not learn it he must perish.
There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.
To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman.
To be a human being means to possess a feeling of inferiority which constantly presses towards its own conquest. The greater the
feeling of inferiority that has been experienced, the more powerful is the urge for conquest and the more violent the emotional agitation.
War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.
War is organized murder and torture against our brothers.
We cannot say that if a child is badly nourished he will become a criminal. We must see what conclusion the child has drawn.
We must interpret a bad temper as a sign of inferiority.
We must never neglect the patient's own use of his symptoms.
Last on Earth
