Sheldon B. Kopp Quotes

Quotes about:

• That is one of the reasons why a man should pick a path with heart, so that he can find his laughter.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Inspirational, Laughter, Heart

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  74 Copy quote

• The Zen Master warns: 'If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!' This admonition points up that no meaning that comes from outside of ourselves is real. The Buddhahood of each of us has already been obtained. We need only recognize it. Philosophy, religion, patriotism, all are empty idols. The only meaning in our lives is what we each bring to them. Killing the Buddha on the road means destroying the hope that anything outside of ourselves can be out master. No one is any bigger than anyone else. There are no mothers or fathers for grown-ups, only sisters and brothers.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Mother, Brother, Father

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  38 Copy quote

• Transformations require that we let go of familiar ways of doing things, without yet knowing what we will do next.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Letting Go, Knowing, Way

  28 Copy quote

• If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Worry, Risk, Care

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  37 Copy quote

• I've never began any important venture for which I felt adequate prepared

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Inspirational, Success, Important

  45 Copy quote

• In the long run we get no more than we have been willing to risk giving.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Inspirational, Motivational, Running

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  42 Copy quote

• And so, it is not astonishing that, though the patient enters therapy insisting that he wants to change, more often than not, what he really wants is to remain the same and to get the therapist to make him feel better. (4)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Feel Better, Want, Patient

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  37 Copy quote

• Love is more than simply being open to experiencing the anguish of another person's suffering. It is the willingness to live with the helpless knowing that we can do nothing to save the other from his pain. (23)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Pain, Love Is, Knowing

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  27 Copy quote

• He prefers the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Fear, Insecurity, Misery

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  42 Copy quote

• Often things are as bad as they seem.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Domestic Violence, Violence, Seems

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• You can't make anyone love you. You just have to reveal who you are and take your chances. (105)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Love You, Chance, One Love

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  34 Copy quote

• If I am transparent enough to myself, then I can become less afraid of those hidden selves that my transparency may reveal to others. If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone. It is enough that I must die alone. I am determined to let down my walls, whatever the risks, if it means that I may have whatever is there for me.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Wall, Mean, Self

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  111 Copy quote

• We all live in a tragicomic situation, a life that is in part absurd simply because it is not of our own making. We are born into a disordered world, into a family we did not choose, into circumstances we would have had somewhat improved, and we are even called by a name we did not select. (40)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Names, World, Absurd

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  22 Copy quote

• You are free to do whatever you like. You need only face the consequences.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Responsibility, Needs, Faces

  Sheldon B. Kopp (1985). “Even a Stone Can be a Teacher: Learning and Growing from the Experiences of Everyday Life”, Tarcher

  14 Copy quote

• Each person's only hope for improving his lot rests on recognizing the true nature of his or her basic personality, surrendering to it, and becoming who he or she really is.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Knowing Who You Are, Personality, Becoming

  5 Copy quote

• We must learn to give ourselves permission to blunder, to fail, and to make fools of ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. We do so in any case.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Giving, Fool, Failing

  Sheldon B. Kopp (1985). “Even a Stone Can be a Teacher: Learning and Growing from the Experiences of Everyday Life”, Tarcher

  15 Copy quote

• The continuing struggle was once described in the following metaphor by a patient who had successfully completed a long course of psychotherapy: 'I came to therapy hoping to receive butter for the bread of life. Instead, at the end, I emerged with a pail of sour milk, a churn, and instructions on how to use them.' (138)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Struggle, Bread Of Life, Sour Milk

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  23 Copy quote

• All significant battles are fought within self.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Self, Battle, Significant

  7 Copy quote

• When a patient says he feels stuck and confused, and through good intentions he struggles to become loose and clear, he only remains chronically trapped in the mire of his own stubbornness. If instead he will go with where he is, only then is there hope. If he will let himself get deeply into the experience of being stuck, only then will he reclaim that part of himself that is holding him. Only if he will give up trying to control his thinking, and let himself sink into his confusion, only then will things become clear. (64)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Giving Up, Confused, Struggle

  24 Copy quote

• The only times that we can have what we long for are those moments when we stop grasping for it. At such times, all things are possible: "to a mind that is 'still' the whole universe surrenders".

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Long, Meditation, Mind

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  8 Copy quote

• Everything good is costly, and the development of the personality is one of the most costly of all things. It will cost you your innocence, your illusions, your certainty. (10)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Personality, Cost, Development

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  25 Copy quote

• Sometimes life seems like a poorly designed cage within which man has been sentenced to be free.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Men, Cages, Sometimes

  4 Copy quote

• The unlived life isn't worth examining.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Examining

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• I remember a group therapy session when one of the patients was reluctantly turning his corner. He would accept it, he said, but he wouldn't like the idea of having to solve problems every day for the rest of his life. My co-therapist told him that it was not required that he like it. She shared her own displeasure, saying: 'I remember that when I first discovered what life was like, I was furious. I guess I'm still kind of mad sometimes.' (135)

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Ideas, Mad, Groups

  25 Copy quote

• To live without the creative potential of our own destructiveness is to be a cardboard angel.

  Sheldon B. Kopp

  Angel, Creative, Destructiveness

  SHELDON B KOPP (1972). “IF YOU MEET THE BUDDHA ON THE ROAD KILL HIM THE PILGRIMAGE OF PSYCHOTHERAPY PATIENTS”

  27 Copy quote

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