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An Educator's Most Important Task, One Might Say His Holy Duty, Is To See To It That No Child Is Discouraged At School, And That A Child Who Enters School Already Discouraged Regains His Self-confidence Through His School And His Teacher. This Goes Hand In Hand With The Vocation Of The Educator, For Education Is Possible Only With Children Who Look Hopefully And Joyfully Upon The Future.

-Alfred Adler

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An Educator's Most Important

Alfred Adler

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An Educator's Most Important Task, One Might Say His Holy Duty, Is To See To It That No Child Is Discouraged At School, And That A Child Who Enters School Already Discouraged Regains His Self-confidence Through His School And His Teacher. This Goes Hand In Hand With The Vocation Of The Educator, For Education Is Possible Only With Children Who Look Hopefully And Joyfully Upon The Future.

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Time Is A Great Teacher, But Unfortunately It Kills All Its Pupils. Hector Berlioz It Is Easier To Fight For One's Principles Than To Live Up To Them.

Our Modern States Are Preparing For War Without Even Knowing The Future Enemy.

To Be Human Means To Feel Inferior.

We Cannot Say That If A Child Is Badly Nourished He Will Become A Criminal. We Must See What Conclusion The Child Has Drawn.

War Is Organized Murder And Torture Against Our Brothers.

We Are Not Determined By Our Experiences, But Are Self-determined By The Meaning We Give To Them; And When We Take Particular Experiences As The Basis For Our Future Life, We Are Almost Certain To Be Misguided To Some Degree. Meanings Are Not Determined By Situations. We Determine Ourselves By The Meanings We Ascribe To Situations.

The Only Normal People Are The Ones You Don't Know Very Well.

Courage Is Not An Ability One Either Possess Or Lacks. Courage Is The Willingness To Engage In A Risk-taking Behavior Regardless Of Whether The Consequences Are Unknown Or Possibly Adverse. We Are Capable Of Courageous Behavior Provided We Are Willing To Engage In It. Given That Life Offers Few Guarantees, All Living Requires Risk-taking.

There Is Only One Reason For An Individual To Side-step To The Useless Side : The Fear Of A Defeat On The Useful Side.

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.

In A Country Of Such Recent Civilization As Ours, Whose Almost Limitless Treasures Of Material Wealth Invite The Risks Of Capital And The Industry Of Labor, It Is But Natural That Material Interests Should Absorb The Attention Of The People To A Degree Elsewhere Unknown.

What Person, Confined In A Small Room With Nothing But A Tea-cosy, Will Not Eventually Put The Tea-cosy On Their Head?

It Is Well Known That Those Who Do Not Trust Themselves Never Trust Others.

It Is Always Easier To Fight For One's Principles Than To Live Up To Them.

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.

We Must Never Neglect The Patient's Own Use Of His Symptoms.

We Only Regard Those Unions As Real Examples Of Love And Real Marriages In Which A Fixed And Unalterable Decision Has Been Taken. If Men Or Women Contemplate An Escape, They Do Not Collect All Their Powers For The Task. In None Of The Serious And Important Tasks Of Life Do We Arrange Such A "getaway." We Cannot Love And Be Limited.

All Failures - Neurotics, Psychotics, Criminals, Drunkards, Problem Children, Suicides, Perverts, And Prostitutes - Are Failures Because They Are Lacking In Social Interest

The Goal Of The Human Soul Is Conquest, Perfection, Security, Superiority.

The Mathematical Life Of A Mathematician Is Short. Work Rarely Improves After The Age Of Twenty-five Or Thirty. If Little Has Been Accomplished By Then, Little Will Ever Be Accomplished.

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The Self-bound Individual Always Forgets That His Self Would Be Safeguarded Better And Automatically The More He Prepares Himself For The Welfare Of Mankind, And That In This Respect No Limits Are Set For Him.

If You Wish To Educate A Child Who Has Gone Wrong, Then You Must, Above All, Keep Your Attention Fixed On The Intersection Of Two Charmed Circles.

Distorted History Boasts Of Bellicose Glory... And Seduces The Souls Of Boys To Seek Mystical Bliss In Bloodshed And In Battles.

Nobody Adopts Antisocial Behaviour Unless They Fear That They Will Fail If They Remain On The Social Side Of Life.

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Mathematics Is Pure Language - The Language Of Science. It Is Unique Among Languages In Its Ability To Provide Precise Expression For Every Thought Or Concept That Can Be Formulated In Its Terms.

It Is From Among Such Individuals That All Human Failures Spring.

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Overcoming Difficulties Leads To Courage, Self-respect, And Knowing Yourself.

Far More Unwaveringly, The Neurotic Keeps Before His Eye His God, His Idol, His Ideal Of Personality And Clings To His Guiding Principle, Losing Sight In The Meanwhile Of Reality, Whereas The Normal Person Is Always Ready To Dispense With This Crutch, This Aid, And Reckon Unhampered With Reality.

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.

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Every Neurotic Is Partly In The Right.

The Chief Danger In Life Is That You May Take Too Many Precautions.

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Everything Can Always Be Different!

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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.

Play Is A Child's Work And This Is Not A Trivial Pursuit.

Tears And Complaints - The Means Which I Have Called Water Power - Can Be An Extremely Useful Weapon For Disturbing Cooperation And Reducing Other To A Condition Of Slavery.

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.

A Lie Would Have No Sense Unless The Truth Were Felt As Dangerous.

The Adlerians, In The Name Of "individual Psychology," Take The Side Of Society Against The Individual. ... Adler's Later Thought Succumbs To The Worst Of His Earlier Banalization. It Is Conventional, Practical, And Moralistic. "our Science ... Is Based On Common Sense." Common Sense, The Half-truths Of A Deceitful Society, Is Honored As The Honest Truths Of A Frank World.

The Widespread Belief That Yuppies As A Class Would Perish From Brie-cheese Poisoning Turned Out To Be Over-optimistic.

In The Company Of Friends, Writers Can Discuss Their Books, Economists The State Of The Economy, Lawyers Their Latest Cases, And Businessmen Their Latest Acquisitions, But Mathematicians Cannot Discuss Their Mathematics At All. And The More Profound Their Work, The Less Understandable It Is.

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!

It Is The Patriotic Duty Of Every Man To Lie For His Country.

There Is No Thing As A Man Who Does Not Create Mathematics And Yet Is A Fine Mathematics Teacher. Textbooks, Course Material-these Do Not Approach In Importance The Communication Of What Mathematics Is Really About, Of Where It Is Going, And Of Where It Currently Stands With Respect To The Specific Branch Of It Being Taught. What Really Matters Is The Communication Of The Spirit Of Mathematics. It Is A Spirit That Is Active Rather Than Contemplative-a Spirit Of Disciplined Search For Adventures Of The Intellect. Only As Adventurer Can Really Tell Of Adventures.

The Striving For Significance, This Sense Of Yearning, Always Points Out To Us That All Psychological Phenomena Contain A Movement That Starts From A Feeling Of Inferiority And Reach Upward. The Theory Of Individual Psychology Of Psychological Compensation States That The Stronger The Feeling Of Inferiority, The Higher The Goal For Personal Power.

My Difficulties Belong To Me!

Seeing With The Eyes Of Another, Listening With The Ears Of Another, And Feeling With The Heart Of Another.

You Can Be Healed Of Depression If Every Day You Begin The First Thing In The Morning To Consider How You Will Bring A Real Joy To Someone Else.

Trust Only Movement. Life Happens At The Level Of Events, Not Of Words. Trust Movement.

I Am Grateful For The Idea That Has Used Me.

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