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"

  130 Copy quote

• Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the limited role of reason in human affairs.

  Thomas Szasz

  People, Understanding, Roles

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

  12 Copy 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

  Work, Medical Science, Antibiotics

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

  27 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

  106 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

  73 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.

  65 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

  56 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

  56 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

  22 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

  98 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

  98 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

  36 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

  54 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)

  107 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

  55 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Fda, Political, Citizens

  59 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.

  59 Copy quote

• The two greatest enemies of the individual in the modern world are communism and psychiatry. Each wages a relentless war against that which makes a person an individual: communism against the ownership of property, psychiatry against the ownership of the self (mind and body). Communists criminalize the autonomous use of capital and labor, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in the black market, especially in foreign currencies. Psychiatrists criminalize the autonomous use of the self, and harshly punish those who "traffic" in self-abuse, especially in self-medication and self-destruction.

  Thomas Szasz

  War, Self, Two

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

  12 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

  43 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

  18 Copy quote

• I favor free trade in drugs for the same reason the Founding Fathers favored free trade in ideas: in a free society it is none of the government's business what ideas a man puts into his mind; likewise, it should be none of its business what drugs he puts into his body.

  Thomas Szasz

  Father, Men, Ideas

  23 Copy quote

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Wise, Self, Wealth

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

  7 Copy quote

• 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

  31 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

  38 Copy quote

• 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.

  12 Copy quote

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