Karen Horney Quotes

Fortunately analysis is not the only way to resolve inner conflicts. Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.

There is no good reason why we should not develop and change until the last day we live.

If you want to be proud of yourself, then do things in which you can take pride

a normal human being ... does not exist.

The view that women are infantile and emotional creatures, and as such, incapable of responsibility and independence is the work of the masculine tendency to lower women's self-respect.

Life itself still remains a very effective therapist.

Rationalization may be defined as self-deception by reasoning.

Let me say to begin with: It is not neurotic to have conflict ... Conflicts within ourselves are an integral part of human life.

We may feel genuinely concerned about world conditions, though such a concern should drive us into action and not into a depression.

Like all sciences and all valuations, the psychology of women has hitherto been considered only from the point of view of men.

Because it corresponds to a vital need, love is overvalued in our culture. It becomes a phantom - like success - carrying with it the illusion that it is a solution for all problems.

If I couldn't be pretty, I decided I would be smart.

To find a mountain path all by oneself gives a greater feeling of strength than to take a path that is shown.

To search for truth about self is as valuable as to search for truth in other areas of life.

[Neurotics are] torn by inner conflicts ... Every neurotic ... is at war with himself.

The perfect normal person is rare in our civilization.

Life as a therapist is ruthless; circumstances that are helpful to one neurotic may crush another.

No one … can entirely step out of his time, that despite his keenness of vision his thinking is in many ways bound to be influenced by the mentality of his time

There is no such thing as a normal psychology that holds for all people.

The conception of what is normal varies not only with the culture but also within the same culture, in the course of time.

miracles occur in psychoanalysis as seldom as anywhere else.

Concern should drive us into action not into a depression.

For the analyst it is a source of never-ending astonishment how comparatively well a person can function with the core of himself not participating.

Pride in many diverse ways is the enemy of love.

Whether we forget something we are not proud of, or embellish it, or blame somebody else, we want to save face by not owning up to shortcomings.

The pride in intellect, or rather in the supremacy of the mind, is not restricted to those engaged in intellectual pursuits but is a regular occurrence in all neurosis.

The tenacity with which the neurotic adheres to any attitude is a sure indication that the attitude fulfills functions which seem indispensable in the framework of his neurosis.

A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization.

The fact that compulsive drives for success will arise only in a competitive culture does not make them any less neurotic.