Thomas Szasz quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Thomas Szasz on Wise Famous Quotes.

The language of science - and especially of a science of man - is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity.

Institutions, no less than persons, may need to be socialized.

Man cannot long survive without air, water, and sleep. Next in importance comes food. And close on its heels, solitude.

There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.

Classifying thoughts, feelings and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying whale as fish.

He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy,
shall receive his reward from God; for he loveth not the unjust doers.

What people really need and demand from life is not wealth, comfort, or esteem, but games worth playing

'Statistics' show that 66% of clients are cured with psychotherapy; what statistics don't show is that 72% are cured without it.

The sense of national emergency engendered by war transforms the destruction of dissident opinion into patriotism.

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.

Child psychology and child psychiatry cannot be reformed. They must be abolished.

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

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

How can depression be real if our eyes arent real?

If you have strongly held opinions, you are opinionated; if you don't, you lack conviction: either way, there is something wrong with you.

A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.

Marx said that religion was the opiate of the people. In the United States today, opiates are the religion of the people.

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

When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him..

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

Insanity is the only sane reaction to an insane society.

Marriages are said to be made in Heaven, which may be why they don't work here on Earth.

Anyone who seeks to help others - whether by means of religion or by means of medicine - must eschew the use of force.

The battle for the world is the battle for definitions.

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

Scientific knowledge does not contain within itself directions for its humanitarian use.

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

Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.

Like the devout theologian seeing the Devil lurking everywhere, Menninger, the devout Freudian, sees aggression.

'Psychotherapy' is a private, confidential conversation that has nothing to do with illness, medicine, or healing.

There are two kinds of 'disabled' persons: Those who dwell on what they have lost and those who concentrate on what they have left.

Science can give us power over nature, but it cannot give us power over human nature.

Since this is the age of science, not religion, psychiatrists are our rabbis, heroin is our pork, and the addict is the unclean person.

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

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.

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage.

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

We cannot institutionalize helping the "victims" of personal disasters.

We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living.

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

He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.

Why don't you have a right to say you are Jesus? And why isn't the proper response to that "congratulations"?

Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It is a human rights abuse.

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

The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds.

All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal.

Delusion: belief said to be false by someone who does not share it.

The basic ingredients of psychotherapy are religion, rhetoric, and repression, which are themselves mutually overlapping categories.

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

The homosexual is a scapegoat who evokes no sympathy. Hence, he can only be a victim, never a martyr.

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

He who does not want to understand the Other has no right to say that what the Other does or says makes no sense.

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

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

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

Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure.

If you talk to God, you are praying. If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia

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

The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else.

There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy.

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.