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Famous Thomas Szasz Quotations

Best famous Thomas Szasz quotations. Find, read, and share the best famous quotations by Thomas Szasz. These are the most popular quotations and best examples of quotes by Thomas Szasz.

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Quote Left Addiction, obesity, starvation (anorexia nervosa) are political problems, not psychiatric: each condenses and expresses a contest between the individual and some other person or persons in his environment over the control of the individual's body. Quote Right
Quote Left Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life's currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose, or, better still, jump in the water and swim for the shore. Quote Right
Quote Left Psychoanalysis is an attempt to examine a person's self-justifications. Hence it can be undertaken only with the patient's cooperation and can succeed only when the patient has something to gain by abandoning or modifying his system of self-justification. Quote Right
Quote Left Aided and abetted by corrupt analysts, patients who have nothing better to do with their lives often use the psychoanalytic situation to transform insignificant childhood hurts into private shrines at which they worship unceasingly the enormity of the offenses committed against them. This solution is immensely flattering to the patients -- as are all forms of unmerited self-aggrandizement; it is immensely profitable for the analysts -- as are all forms pandering to people's vanity; and it is often immensely unpleasant for nearly everyone else in the patient's life. Quote Right
Quote Left We achieve active mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age. Quote Right
Quote Left Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to the intellectual expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-medical jargon that parodies the concepts of science. The social style conforms to the political expectations of our age: it is a pseudo-liberal social movement that parodies the ideals of freedom and rationality. Quote Right
Quote Left Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum. Quote Right
Quote Left A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong. Quote Right
Quote Left If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order. Quote Right
Quote Left Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantations. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it. Quote Right
Quote Left Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine. Quote Right
Quote Left Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less. Quote Right
Quote Left The many faces of intimacy: the Victorians could experience it through correspondence, but not through cohabitation; contemporary men and women can experience it through fornication, but not through friendship. Quote Right
Quote Left If you talk to God, you are praying; if God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. Quote Right
Quote Left Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults. Quote Right
Quote Left People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. Quote Right
Quote Left The proverb warns; Don't bite the hand that feeds you. But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself. Quote Right
Quote Left Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are... Quote Right
Quote Left If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia. Quote Right
Quote Left When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. Quote Right
Quote Left The stupid neither forgive or forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. Quote Right
Quote Left Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic. Quote Right
Quote Left Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic. Quote Right
Quote Left If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic. Quote Right
Quote Left The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are. Quote Right
Quote Left The stupid neither forgive nor forget the naive forgive and forget the wise forgive but do not forget. Quote Right
Quote Left It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish. Quote Right
Quote Left In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients. Quote Right
Quote Left Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse. Quote Right
Quote Left Some people say they haven't yet found themselves. But the self is not something one finds; it is something one creates. Quote Right
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Book: Shattered Sighs