Wisdom of Dr. Abraham Low

"Whether you are right or wrong is immaterial. Temper is a matter of breeding, not of right and wrong."

"With us in Recovery it is an axiom that while a nervous ailment is not necessarily caused by distorted beliefs, nevertheless, if it persists beyond a reasonable time, its continuance, stubbornness and 'resistance' are produced by continuing, stubborn and 'resisting' beliefs."

"Humans have never been known to endorse themselves as they should."

"With reference to his symptoms a nervous patient must be genuine in feeling and sincere in thought."

"I can't tell you not to feel provoked. I may tell you that I have a great capacity for feeling provoked about every few minutes, but I hope I have an equally great capacity, and perhaps a trifling greater capacity, to hold down the feeling of being provoked."

"Patients who suffer from a depression think that whatever they do is wrong. They think whatever they have done in the past is wrong, and they recount past misdemeanors and so-called delinquencies, which have perhaps some basis in fact but are monstrously exaggerated. And you understand that such patients categorically deny that there is anything right in their thinking."

"A sense of humor is the sovereign means for curing nervous conditions."

"My purpose in life is to make myself and those people that are close to me -- let me say the members of my family, my friends, my neighbors, and so forth, my co-workers -- make them feel good and to make myself feel good."

"Nervous patients tend to be extremists with regard to their symptoms when they are still sick and with regard to the practice of rules after they have improved."

Selections from Dr. Low's Works
© 1997 By Phyllis Low Berning and Marilyn Low Schmitt
The Wisdom of Dr. Low is compiled by Cliff Brown and edited by Marilyn Low Schmitt.