Home > Author > William Glasser
21 " unhappiness can lead people in two directions. The first unhappy group tries to find the way back to happiness, which I define as pleasurable relationships with happy people. The second unhappy group has given up on finding happiness with happy people; they no longer even try to have pleasurable relationships. But like all of us, they do not give up on trying to feel good. They continually search for pleasure without relationships and find much of it by abusing food, alcohol, drugs, and by engaging in violence and unloving sex. If we cannot create a society in which more people are happy, we will never come close to reducing these destructive and self-destructive choices. "
― William Glasser , Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom
22 " If you look around at your family and friends, you will see that the happiest people are the ones who don't pretend to know what's right for others and don't try to control anyone but themselves. "
― William Glasser , For Parents and Teenagers: Dissolving the Barrier Between You and Your Teen
23 " Kids aren't stupid; we figure things out. We don't want to wreck our lives any more than you do. As long as we're loved, most of us come out okay. "
24 " While it is easy to blame a teen for not succeeding, there are serious flaws in the school system that make it impossible for many students to feel successful in school. "
25 " there is no evidence that we are genetically driven to find sexual love with the same person for our entire lives. Our genes want someone; they don’t care whom. This truth is evident in the high divorce rate and the almost equally high remarriage rate, "
26 " Never say no when you mean yes, "
― William Glasser , Reality Therapy: A New Approach to Psychiatry
27 " we learn responsibility through involvements with responsible fellow human beings, preferably loving parents who will love and discipline us properly, who are intelligent enough to allow us freedom to try out our newly acquired responsibility as soon as we show readiness to do so. "
28 " the surface. To begin to approach that goal, we need a new psychology that can help us get closer to each other than most of us are able to do now. "
29 " It takes strength, however, to be warm, firm, humorous, and caring and still do what we know we ought to do. Our lives would be much better if we never said, “The hell with it! "
― William Glasser , Positive Addiction
30 " Weak people carry a torch for life, they “enjoy” wallowing in their misery. They do so partly in the hope that someone will feel sorry for them and solve their problems "
31 " Perhaps the beginning of gaining strength is becoming aware of the bad choices you make. Just knowing that you choose much of your misery yourself will help you get the idea that it may be worth trying to make a better choice. If you believe your misery just happens to you and you have no control over it, then you will never get much more than what you are getting now from life. "
32 " No one is so inadequate that he can’t help himself to some degree. Not only can he, but he must; nothing else will work. "
33 " Many mothers rely on external control psychology to make their children feel guilty. But choosing to feel guilty because you don’t do what your mother expects of you is a choice. When you learn this lesson—and if you have a skilled guilt-tripping mother it is not an easy one to learn—you will find that it frees both you and your mother to make better choices. "
34 " [W]aiting for attitudes to change stalls therapy whereas changing behavior leads quickly to a change in attitude, which in turn can lead to fulfilling needs and further better behavior. "
35 " Beware of getting involved with people who seem to be able to feel good but have no close friends. They may be witty and fun to be around, but their humor is all put-downs and hostility. If you marry such a person, you will soon be the recipient of that hostile humor and may regret it for the rest of your marriage. Look for someone who has good friends whom he or she treats well and whom you enjoy being with, too. Someone who does not have good friends does not know how to love. "
36 " In essence, we gain self-respect through discipline and closeness to others through love. Discipline must always have within it the element of love. "I care enough about you to force you to act in a better way, in a way you will learn through experience to know, and I already know, is the right way." Similarly, love must always have an element of discipline. "I love you because you are a worthwhile person, because I respect you and feel you respect me as well as yourself. "
37 " If there is a medical analogy which applies to psychiatric problems, it is not illness but weakness.While illness can be cured by removing the causative agent, weakness can be cured only by strengthening the existing body to cope with the stress of the world, large or small as this stress may be, "
38 " after so many years of the freedom we have, many people are still deeply suspicious of free speech, of allowing people to say things that they know are not right. Having enjoyed the benefits and suffered the problems of the Bill of Rights for so long, these people see only the problems and would vote against this protection today if they had a chance. If you will do what I say, I will protect you against the forces of evil is the working maxim of every tyrant who has ever lived. "
39 " Regardless of past circumstances, the psychiatric patient must develop the strength to take the responsibility to fulfill his needs satisfactorily. Treatment, therefore, is not to give him understanding of past misfortunes which caused his "illness," but to help him to function in a better way right now. "
40 " When a man acts in such a way that he gives and receives love, and feels worthwhile to himself and others, his behavior is right or moral. "