Wilfred Bion

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The purest form of listening is to listen without memory or desire.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Memories
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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 If it is 'known' by patient and analyst, it is obsolete....The only point of importance in any session is the unknown.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
Collection: Darkness
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To dare to be aware of the facts of the universe in which we are existing calls for courage.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Inspirational
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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
Collection: Beautiful
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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
Collection: Lying
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Arrogance is a great obstruction to wisdom.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Arrogance
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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
Collection: Order
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To be unable to bear an ill is itself a great ill.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Adversity
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A good leader makes a good follower.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Leadership
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The end of a dissolute life is a desperate death.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Life
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Wealth is the sinews of affairs.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Business
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We ought not to heap reproaches on old age, seeing that we all hope to reach it.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Age
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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
Collection: Learning
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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
Collection: Benefits
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The road to Hades is easy to travel.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Easy
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Old age is the harbor of all ills.
- Wilfred Bion
Collection: Age