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Paul Watzlawick QUOTES

Paul Watzlawick QUOTES

1 " Our everyday, traditional ideas of reality are delusions which we spend substantial parts of our daily lives shoring up, even at the considerable risk of trying to force facts to fit our definition of reality instead of vice versa. And the most dangerous delusion of all is that there is only one reality. "

― Paul Watzlawick , How Real Is Real?

2 " ...The world's benefactor has no choice; he is the surgeon who wields the healing scalpel. He does not want the violence, but the reality (which he has invented) drives him to use violence, in a way, against his will. Throwing a bomb into a crowded department store thus becomes an act of revolutionary love for mankind (and, in general, to quote Lübbe again, 'his primary intention is not to throw bombs into department stores or police stations, but rather into public consciousness.') "

― Paul Watzlawick , Münchhausen's Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & "Reality"

3 " I want to see all oppressed people throughout the world free. And the only way we can do this is by moving toward a revolutionary society where the needs and wishes of all people can be respected.' With these words the radical philosophy professor Angela Davis paraphrases Isaiah's ancient messianic dream of the lion that will peacefully lie down with the lamb in a completely good world. But what the Biblical prophet perhaps could not know is contained with a clarity that leaves nothing to be desired in the opening sentence of an address of the French Senate to Napoleon I: "Sire, the desire for perfection is one of the worst maladies that can affect the human mind. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Münchhausen's Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & "Reality"

4 " In psychotherapy it is the myth of knowing this why as precondition for change which defeats its own purpose. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

5 " The ideological premise, however, "can" not be defective; it is sacrosanct. ... Whatever does not seem right, whatever does not fit, must be explained by something wrong outside of the ideology; for its perfection is beyond all doubt. In (t)his way the ideology immunizes itself by offering more and more hair-splitting accusations. Betrayal and the dark powers of inner and outer enemies lie in wait everywhere. Theories about conspiracies develop and conveniently hide the absurdity of the premise, necessitating and justifying bloody purges. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Münchhausen's Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & "Reality"

6 " Özgürlük iyiyle, doğruyla, mükemmelle özdeş tutulamaz... Özgürlüğün iyiyle ve mükemmellikle her karışımı ve özdeş tutulması bizzat özgürlüğün reddidir, şiddet ve baskı ilanıdır. Zora dayanan iyi artık iyi değildir, kötüye dönüşmüştür. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Di bene in peggio. Istruzioni per un successo catastrofico

7 " The loss or the absence of meaning in life is perhaps the most common denominator of all forms of emotional distress; it is especially the much-commented-on "modern" illness. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

8 " and as long as the outcome of any combination of two or more members is itself a member of the group. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

9 " Another property of a group is that one may combine its members in varying sequence, yet the outcome of the combination remains the same. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

10 " there is changeability in process, but invariance in outcome. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

11 " In human relations, all prediction is connected in one way or another with the phenomenon of trust. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

12 " Unfortunately, natural language often makes a clear distinction between member and class difficult. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

13 " In fact, it seems that the more spontaneous and "healthy" a relationship, the more the relationship aspect of communication recedes into the background. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

14 " Gear-shifting is thus a phenomenon of a higher logical type than giving gas, and it would be patently nonsensical to talk about the mechanics of complex gears in the language of the thermodynamics of fuel supply. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Change: Principles of Problem Formation and Problem Resolution

15 " In psychotherapeutic work with intelligent schizophrenics on again and again is tempted to conclude that they would be much better off, much more "normal", if they could only somehow blunt the acuity of their thinking and thus alleviate the paralyzing effect it has on their actions. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

16 " The basic theme of a hostile environment that seeks to destroy the ideology has many variations. Hitler fought his life-and-death struggle against a coalition (constructed by him alone) of 'Jewish, plutocratic and Bolshevik powers supported by the Vatican'; Ulrike Meinhof's indignation was directed against 'the German parliamentary coalition, the American government, the police, the state and university authorities, the bourgeois, the Shah of Iran, the multinational corporations, the capitalist system'; the opponents of nuclear energy imagine themselves up against a powerful, monolithic alliance of irresponsible corporations, the powers of high finance, and all the institutions that are slave to it: courts, authorities, universities, as well as other research institutions, and political parties. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Münchhausen's Pigtail, or Psychotherapy & "Reality"

17 " To avoid a frequent misunderstanding, it cannot be emphasized too strongly that symmetry and complementarity in communication are not ins and by themselves "good" or "bad", "normal" or "abnormal", etc. The two concepts simply refer tp two basic categories into which all communicational interchanges can be divided. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

18 " It is in the nature of paradox that "equations" based on it do not work out. Where paradox contaminates human relations, disease appears. "

― Paul Watzlawick , Pragmatics of Human Communication: A Study of Interactional Patterns, Pathologies and Paradoxes

19 " Este libro analiza el hecho de que lo que llamamos realidad es resultado de la comunicación. "

― Paul Watzlawick , How Real Is Real?

20 " la vida es un juego cuya primera regla es: esto no es un juego, "

― Paul Watzlawick , Anleitung zum Unglücklichsein