I am a US male MD psychiatrist.
I collected therapeutic thoughts and wrote others during my eighteen years as a psychotherapist. The best of them are in this book.
Some categories and number of pages covering:
Optimism 2
Blame 3
Reconciliation 3
God 3
Honesty 4
Reality 4
Activity 5
Fear 5
Power 7
Truth 8
Freedom 9
Love 9
Anger 10
Self-esteem 11
Self Concept 16
Ego 16
Expectations 34
Forgiving 34
The overall goal is self help that is also enjoyable reading. Half of the book consists of quotes from others: Pharaoh Rameses II, Buddha, Confucius, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Elizabeth Barrett Browning and many contemporary authors.
Everyday problems are addressed. For example, Aristotle’s “We go to work to have leisure and go to war to have peace” is still noteworthy today.
I have placed connected aphorisms together so that the thoughts support and build on each other.
Examples of two self-esteem quotes:
1 – A self-help book is like a lawn mower. You can go out and spend a tidy sum buying a good one. But if you don’t get behind it and push, it won’t cut grass. Lebouf
2 – A person without self-esteem is like a car without gasoline. Thomas Szasz
PARTIAL OUTLINE OF BOOK (only the first four chapters)
Chapter 1 – Aphorisms On Aphorisms
A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience. Cervantes
Action: Absence of occupation is not rest. A mind quite vacant is a mind distressed. William Cowper
Modern Culture: Women who seek to be equal to men may be seeking to lower themselves.
You can afford a home as long as you don’t stay home. Herbert V. Prochnow
Morality: Puritanism The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. H.L. Menchen
Chapter 2 – Giving Thanks
All our discontents spring from want of thankfulness for what we have. Daniel Defoe
Money: The meek shall inherit the earth but not the mineral rights. Jean Paul Getty
Addictions: Money and TV are only instruments to be used, not deities to be worshiped.
Television: Be disciplined enough to keep your well filled with well thoughts, or it will occupy itself with TV, at your own considerable expense.
Education: I learned much from my teachers, more from my books, and most from my troubles. I. Kaminer
Acceptance: To have no choice is the ultimate freedom; there is only the way things are. Krishnamurti
History should prevent the same mistakes. But we now write history to rationalize our present mistakes. Claud G. Bowers
History is more ideological than objective. George Washington’s inability to lie was and is a historical myth; it is a lie used to prevent our lying. A particular past is concocted and used as a tool to get you to act in a particular way now.
Attitude: How you view your past and future is determined by how you want to feel at the present time. If you want to be happy now, you’ll recall happy memories and envision a happy future.
Beliefs: We all have our cowardices. We call them “our principles.” Whenever a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he declares it is his duty. George Bernard Shaw
Work: God cares for even the birds of the field; but he doesn’t throw the food in the nest.
Grief: Cry child cry. For unexpressed grief never ends. Mexican
If you have tears, prepare to shed them now. Shakespeare
Chapter 3 – Optimism and Pessimism
How many pessimists end up bringing about the events that they foretell in order to prove they are right?
A pessimist is one who has been intimately acquainted with an optimist.