Quote: People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something one creates. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the nave forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; love by love. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: We often speak of love when we really should be speaking of the drive to dominate or to master, so as to confirm ourselves as active agents, in control of our own destinies and worthy of respect from others. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Men often treat others worse than they treat themselves, but they rarely treat anyone better. It is the height of folly to expect consideration and decency from a person who mistreats himself. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: No further evidence is needed to show that mental illness is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: 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. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage. [Thomas Szasz]
Quote: The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic --in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea --known to medical science is work. [Thomas Szasz]