“Life is indeed difficult, partly because of the real difficulties we must overcome in order to survive, and partly because of our own innate desire to always do better, to overcome new challenges, to self-actualize. 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.”

“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.”

“Acceptance is not love. You love a person because he or she has lovable traits, but you accept everybody just because they're alive and human.”

“Human relationships always help us to carry on because they always presuppose further developments, a future - and also because we live as if our only task was precisely to have relationships with other people.”

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”

“There are three musts that hold us back: I must do well. You must treat me well . And the world must be easy.”

“Within each of us, there lies the innate ability to survive, triumph, and overcome, rewriting the scripts of our own lives, having some power over our fate and the fate of generations to come. Nothing has to be 'just because that's the way it's always been.' -The Boots My Mother Gave Me”