59 Quotes by Karen Horney

If a person has had sufficient courage to discover an unpleasant truth about himself, one may safely trust his courage to be strong enough to carry him through.

When he moves away from people, he wants neither to belong nor to fight, but keeps apart. He feels he has not much in common with them, they do not understand him somehow. He builds up a world of his own -with nature, with his dolls, his books, his dreams.

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

Many such relations are carried on under the camouflage of love, that is, under a subjective conviction of attachment, when actually the love is only the person’s clinging to others to satisfy his own needs.

Others are responsible for the trouble I am in – so I am entitled to repair. And what kind of repair would it be, if I made all the effort! Naturally, only a person who has lost constructive interest in his life can argue that way. It is no longer up to him to do something about his life; it is up to “them,” or to fate.