Thomas Szasz Quotes

Quotes about:

• The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

  Thomas Szasz

  Life, Forgiveness, Letting Go

  The Second Sin (1973) "Personal Conduct"

  124 Copy quote

• We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility

  Thomas Szasz

  Meaningful, Responsibility, Guilt

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.79, Transaction Publishers

  41 Copy quote

• In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.

  Thomas Szasz

  Children, Parent, Today

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1990). “The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary”, Open Court Publishing Company

  15 Copy quote

• The less a person knows about the workings of the social institutions in his society, the more he must trust those who wield power in it; and the more he trusts those who wield such power, the more vulnerable he makes himself to becoming their victim.

  Thomas Szasz

  Becoming, Vulnerable, Victim

  17 Copy quote
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  In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.

  Thomas Szasz

  Animal, Kingdoms, Totems

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.65, Transaction Publishers

  71 Copy quote

• In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.

  Thomas Szasz

  Past, Men, Patient

  "The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1970.

  58 Copy quote
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  If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

  Thomas Szasz

  Depression, Prayer, Humorous

  The Second Sin "Schizophrenia" (1973)

  104 Copy quote

• Mental illness is a myth, whose function is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in human relations.

  Thomas Szasz

  Pills, Moral, Bitter

  Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.156, Routledge

  53 Copy quote

• Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.

  Thomas Szasz

  Courage, Thinking, Clear

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.139, Transaction Publishers

  101 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Szasz

  Life, Wisdom, Creating

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.139, Transaction Publishers

  91 Copy quote

• Self-respect is to the soul as oxygen is to the body. Deprive a person of oxygen, and you kill his body; deprive him of self-respect and you kill his spirit.

  Thomas Szasz

  Self Esteem, Oxygen, Self Respect

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1973). “The second sin”, Anchor

  33 Copy quote

• Prostitution is said to be the world's oldest profession. It is, indeed, a model of all professional work: the worker relinquishes control over himself... in exchange for money. Because of the passivity it entails, this is a difficult and, for many, a distasteful role.

  Thomas Szasz

  Passivity Is, Roles, World

  "The Second Sin". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1973.

  11 Copy quote

• Labeling a child as mentally ill is stigmatization, not diagnosis. Giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning, not treatment.

  Thomas Szasz

  Children, Giving, Drug

  Thomas Szasz's remarks at the 35th Anniversary and Human Rights Award Dinner of the Citizens Commission on Human Rights International at Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, www.szasz.com. February 28, 2004.

  63 Copy quote

• The proverb warns that 'You should not bite the hand that feeds you.' But maybe you should, if it prevents you from feeding yourself.

  Thomas Szasz

  Hands, Self Reliance, Liberty

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1973). “The second sin”, Anchor

  51 Copy 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

  Order, Law, Punishment

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2002). “The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience”, p.36, Syracuse University Press

  21 Copy quote

• The poor need jobs and money, not psychoanalysis. The uneducated need knowledge and skills, not psychoanalysis.

  Thomas Szasz

  Jobs, Skills, Needs

  Thomas Szasz (1988). “The Ethics of Psychoanalysis: The Theory and Method of Autonomous Psychotherapy”, p.28, Syracuse University Press

  17 Copy quote

• 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 aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily.

  Thomas Szasz

  Positive, Education, Children

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.40, Transaction Publishers

  94 Copy quote

• The FDA calls certain substances "controlled." But there are no "controlled substances," there are only controlled citizens.

  Thomas Szasz

  Fda, Political, Citizens

  52 Copy quote

• Only idiots and infants need things. The language of needs is the native tongue of socialists, therapists, and paternalists of all sorts and is addressed to needy dependents. The language of wants is spoken by self-respecting adults and is addressed to other self-respecting adults.

  Thomas Szasz

  Self, Tongue, Adults

  5 Copy quote

• The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.

  Thomas Szasz

  Religious, Men, Roots

  35 Copy quote

• Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected American Society within the last fifty years.

  Thomas Szasz

  Years, Medicine, Fifty

  52 Copy 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

  Love, Responsibility, Sick

  62 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Szasz

  Hurt, Vanity, Self

  55 Copy quote

• 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.

  Thomas Szasz

  Selfish, Easier, Duty

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (1973). “The second sin”, Anchor

  15 Copy quote

• Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; and love by love.

  Thomas Szasz

  Love, Inspirational, Learning

  Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.139, Transaction Publishers

  25 Copy quote

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