Karen Horney

"A perfectly normal person is rare in our civilization."

- Karen Horney

"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."

- Karen Horney

"Pride and self-hate belong inseparably together; they are two expressions of one process."

- Karen Horney

"The neurotic, as long as he must adhere to his illusions about himself, cannot recognize limitations, the search for glory goes into the unlimited. Because the main goal is the attainment of glory, he becomes uninterested in the process of learning, of doing, or of gaining step by step — indeed, tends to scorn it. He does not want to climb a mountain; he wants to be on the peak. Hence he loses the sense of what evolution or growth means, even though he may talk about it. Because, finally, the creation of the idealized self is possible only at the expense of truth about himself, its actualization requires further distortions of truth, imagination being a willing servant to this end. Thereby, to a greater or lesser extent, he loses in the process his interest in truth, and the sense for what is true or not true — a loss that, among others, accounts for his difficulty in distinguishing between genuine feelings, beliefs, strivings, and their artificial equivalents (unconscious pretenses) in himself and in others. The emphasis shifts from being to appearing."

- Karen Horney

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

- Karen Horney

"Concern should drive us into action, not into a depression."

- Karen Horney

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

- Karen Horney

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

- Karen Horney

"Even though godlike in his imagination, he still lacks the earthy self-confidence of a simple shepherd."

- Karen Horney

"Life itself remains a very effective therapist."

- Karen Horney

"It is naturally a sign of inner liberation when a patient can squarely recognize his difficulties and take them with a grain of humor. But some patients at the beginning of analysis make incessant jokes about themselves, or exaggerate their difficulties in so dramatic a way that they will appear funny, while they are at the same time absurdly sensitive to any criticism. In these instances humor is used to take the sting out of an otherwise unbearable shame."

- Karen Horney

"Man, by his very nature and of his own accord, strives toward self-realization, and that his set of values evolves from such striving. Apparently he cannot, for example, develop his full human potentialities unless he is truthful to himself; unless he is active and productive; unless he relates himself to others in the spirit of mutuality. Apparently he cannot grow if he indulges in a "dark idolatry of self" and consistently attributes all his own shortcomings to the deficiencies of others. He can grow, in the true sense, only if he assumes responsibility for himself."

- Karen Horney