Quotes by Alfred Adler


A lie would have no sense unless the truth were felt dangerous.
– Alfred Adler

The chief danger in life is that you may take too many precautions.
– Alfred Adler
Exaggerated sensitiveness is an expression of the feeling of inferiority.
– Alfred Adler
It is always easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
– Alfred Adler
It is the patriotic duty of every man to lie for his country.
– Alfred Adler
Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.
– Alfred Adler
The only normal people are the one's you don't know very well.
– Alfred Adler
The truth is often a terrible weapon of aggression. It is possible to lie, and even to murder, with the truth.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
There is no such thing as talent. There is pressure.
– Alfred Adler
To all those who walk the path of human cooperation war must appear loathsome and inhuman.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
To be human means to feel inferior.
– Alfred Adler
War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.
– Alfred Adler
War is organized murder and torture against our brothers.
– Alfred Adler
What do you first do when you learn to swim? You make mistakes, do you not? And what happens? You make other mistakes, and when you have made all the mistakes you possibly can without drowning - and some of them many times over - what do you find? That you can swim? Well - life is just the same as learning to swim! Do not be afraid of making mistakes, for there is no other way of learning how to live!
– Alfred Adler
The test of one's behavior pattern is their relationship to society, relationship to work and relationship to sex.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler
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.
– Alfred Adler