Wilfred Bion Quotes

• The purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire.

  Wilfred Bion

  Memories, Listening, Desire

  117 Copy quote

• Every session attended by the analyst must have no history and no future. What is 'known' about the patient is of no further consequence: it is either false or irrelevant. If it is 'known' by patient and analyst, it is obsolete....The only point of importance in any session is the unknown. Nothing must be allowed to distract from intuiting that. In any session, evolution takes place. Out of the darkness and formlessness something evolves.

  Wilfred Bion

  Darkness, Patient, Evolution

  100 Copy quote

• To dare to be aware of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage.

  Wilfred Bion

  Inspirational, Facts, Dare

  67 Copy quote

• It is very important to be aware that you may never be satistied with your analytic career if you feel that you are restricted to what is narrowly called a ‘scientific’ approach. You will have to be able to have a chance of feeling that the interpretation you give is a beautiful one, or that you get a beautiful response from the patient. This aesthetic element of beauty makes a very difficult situation tolerable.

  Wilfred Bion

  Beautiful, Difficult Situations, Careers

  66 Copy quote

• It is too often forgotten that the gift of speech, so centrally employed, has been elaborated as much for the purpose of concealing thought by dissimulation and lying as for the purpose of elucidating and communicating thought.

  Wilfred Bion

  Lying, Purpose, Speech

  Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (1977). “Seven Servants: Four Works”, Jason Aronson Incorporated

  55 Copy quote

• Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom.

  Wilfred Bion

  Arrogance, Obstruction

  35 Copy quote

• If a new result is to have any value, it must unite elements long since known, but till then scattered and seemingly foreign to each other, and suddenly introduce order where the appearance of disorder reigned.

  Wilfred Bion

  Order, Long, Connections

  Wilfred Ruprecht Bion (1977). “Seven Servants: Four Works”, Jason Aronson Incorporated

  45 Copy quote

• To be unable to bear an ill is itself a great ill.

  Wilfred Bion

  Adversity, Bears, Ill

  32 Copy quote

• A good leader makes a good follower.

  Wilfred Bion

  Leadership, Leader, Followers

  35 Copy quote

• The end of a dissolute life is a desperate death.

  Wilfred Bion

  Life, Desperate, Ends

  29 Copy quote

• Wealth is the sinews of affairs.

  Wilfred Bion

  Business, Wealth, Affair

  32 Copy quote

• We ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that we all hope to reach it.

  Wilfred Bion

  Age, Ought, Reproach

  28 Copy quote

• Of all evil things the least quantity is to be borne, but of learning and knowledge, the more a man hath, the better he can bear it.

  Wilfred Bion

  Learning, Men, Evil

  28 Copy quote

• Misers take care of property as if it belonged to them, but derive no more benefit from it than if it belonged to others.

  Wilfred Bion

  Benefits, Care, Misers

  25 Copy quote

• The road to Hades is easy to travel.

  Wilfred Bion

  Easy, Hades

  24 Copy quote

• Old age is the harbor of all ills.

  Wilfred Bion

  Age, Harbors, Old Age

  "Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers". Book by Diogenes Laërtius, Book 4: The Academy, 47, c. 200 A.D..

  30 Copy quote

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