Thomas Szasz Quotes - Page 3

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I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in creation born in the condition that requires immediate surgical correction is the human male.

Thomas Szasz

Believe, Practice, Mammals

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Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.

Thomas Szasz

Medicine, Experts, Mendacity

Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.162, Transaction Publishers

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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

Family, Children, Maturity

The Second Sin (1973) "Childhood"

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The neurotic has problems; the psychotic has solutions.

Thomas Szasz

Psychosis, Doubt, Neurosis

Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.141, Routledge

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When the psychiatrist approves of a person's actions, he judges that person to have acted with "free choice"; when he disapproves,he judges him to have acted without "free choice." It is small wonder that people find "free choice" a confusing idea: "free choice" appears to refer to what the person being judged (often called the "patient") does, whereas it is actually what the person making the judgment (often a psychiatrist or other mental health worker) thinks.

Thomas Szasz

Thinking, Ideas, People

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A person cannot make another happy, but he can make him unhappy. This is the main reason why there is more unhappiness than happiness in the world.

Thomas Szasz

Unhappy, World, Reason Why

Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.211, Transaction Publishers

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The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are.

Thomas Szasz

Stupid, People

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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.

Thomas Szasz

Men, Rocks, Trying

Thomas Stephen Szasz (2004). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.140, Transaction Publishers

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Traditionally, sex has been a very private, secretive activity. Herein perhaps lies its powerful force for uniting people in a strong bond. As we make sex less secretive, we may rob it of its power to hold men and women together.

Thomas Szasz

Strong, Sex, Powerful

The Second Sin "Sex" (1973)

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Sex is a body-contact sport. It is safe to watch but more fun to play.

Thomas Szasz

Sports, Sex, Fun

Thomas Stephen Szasz (1981). “Sex by prescription”, Penguin (Non-Classics)

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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

Love, Successful, Conceited

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Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.

Thomas Szasz

Revenge, Mistake, Inspiration

The Second Sin (1973) "Social Relations"

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People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful virtuous, glorifying in becoming victimized by them.

Thomas Szasz

Dream, Powerful, People

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If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic.

Thomas Szasz

God, Madness, Schizophrenia

The Second Sin (1973) "Schizophrenia"

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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.

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Work is pushing matter around. Politics is pushing people around.

Thomas Szasz

People, Political, Politics

Thomas Stephen Szasz (1976). “Heresies”, Anchor Books

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Whenever masses of people, especially educated people, know something - and when what they know is something they greatly fear because they believe it affects virtually everything they do or want to do - then most likely we stand in the presence of a vast falsehood.

Thomas Szasz

Believe, People, Want

Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences”, p.11, Syracuse University Press

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For Jews, the Messiah has never come; for Christians, He has come but once; for modern man, He appears and disappears with increasing rapidity. The saviors of modern man, the "scientists" who promise salvation through the "discoveries" of ethology and sociology, psychology and psychiatry, and all the other bogus religions, issue forth periodically, as if selected by some Messiah-of-the-Month Club.

Thomas Szasz

Christian, Men, Issues

"The Second Sin (Science and Scientism)". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1973.

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Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.

Thomas Szasz

Happiness, Patience, Attitude

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

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As the dominant social ethic changed from a religious to a secular one, the problem of heresy disappeared, and the problem of madness arose and became of great social significance. In the next chapter I shall examine the creation of social deviants, and shall show that as formerly priests had manufactured heretics, so physicians, as the new guardians of social conduct and morality, began to manufacture madmen.

Thomas Szasz

Religious, Next, Physicians

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

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Parents teach children discipline for two different, indeed diametrically opposed, reasons: to render the child submissive to them and to make him independent of them. Only a self-disciplined person can be obedient; and only such a person can be autonomous.

Thomas Szasz

Children, Independent, Self

"The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1990.

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The battle for the world is the battle for definitions.

Thomas Szasz

Battle, World, Definitions

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Men are rewarded or punished not for what they do but for how their acts are defined. That is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.

Thomas Szasz

Men, Punishment, Why Me

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

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So long as men denounce each other as mentally sick (homosexual, addicted, insane, and so forth) so that the madman can always be considered the Other, never the Self mental illness will remain an easily exploitable concept, and Coercive Psychiatry a flourishing institution.

Thomas Szasz

Men, Self, Long

Thomas Stephen Szasz (1997). “The Manufacture of Madness: A Comparative Study of the Inquisition and the Mental Health Movement”, p.170, Syracuse University Press

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The Nazis spoke of having a Jewish problem. We now speak of having a drug-abuse problem. Actually, "Jewish problem" was the name the Germans gave to their persecution of the Jews; "drug-abuse problem" is the name we give to the persecution of people who use certain drugs.

Thomas Szasz

Names, People, Giving

"The second sin". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1973.

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Born: April 15, 1920
Died: September 8, 2012
Occupation: Psychiatrist
Cite this Page: Citation

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