165 Quotes by Alice Miller

It was 20 below zero, but it was a dry cold. It was not too bad.

The capacity of the human organism to bear pain is, for our own protection, limited. All attempts to overstep this natural threshold by resolving repression in a violent manner will, as with every other form of violation, have negative and often dangerous consequences.

I just think this is so sad. That is all.

Disrespect is the weapon of the weak.

The automatic, natural contact with his own emotions and needs gives an individual strength and self-esteem. He may experience his feelings – sadness, despair, or the need for help – without fear of making the mother insecure. He can allow himself to be afraid when he is threatened, angry when his wishes are not fulfilled. He knows not only what he does not want but also what he wants and is able to express his wants, irrespective of whether he will be loved or hated for it.

Don’t ever dare to take your college as a matter of course – because, like democracy and freedom, many people you’ll never know have broken their hearts to get it for you.

I have never known a patient to portray his parents more negatively than he actually experienced them in childhood but always more positively – because idealization of his parents was essential for his survival.

Wherever I look, I see signs of the commandment to honor one’s parents and nowhere of a commandment that calls for the respect of a child.

Oppression and the forcing of submission do not begin in the office, factory, or political party; they begin in the very first weeks of an infant’s life. Afterward they are repressed and are then, because of their very nature, inaccessible to argument. Nothing changes in the character of submission or dependency, when it is only their object that is changed.