Thomas Szasz Quotes - Page 2

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

Thomas Szasz

Games, People, Comfort

56 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

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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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When a man says that he is Jesus or Napoleon, or that the Martians are after him, or claims something else that seems outrageous to common sense, he is labeled psychotic and locked up in a madhouse. Freedom of speech is only for normal people.

Thomas Szasz

Jesus, Men, People

80 Copy quote
Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

Thomas Szasz

Strong, Mistake, Men

The Second Sin "Science and Scientism" (1973)

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

Thomas Szasz

People, United States, Opiates

"The Second Sin (Drugs)". Book by Thomas Szasz, 1973.

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

Thomas Szasz

Rights, Abuse, Doe

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Addiction, obesity, starvation (anorexia nervosa) are political problems, not psychiatric: each condense and expresses a contest between the individual and some other person or persons in his environment over the control of the individual's body.

Thomas Szasz

Addiction, Political, Anorexia

47 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

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In the 60s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal. In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.

Thomas Szasz

Animal, People, World

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

Thomas Szasz

Laughter, Drinking, Laughing

Thomas Szasz (2017). “Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary”, p.260, Routledge

47 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

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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

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The battle for the world is the battle for definitions.

Thomas Szasz

Battle, World, Definitions

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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

63 Copy quote
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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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

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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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Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can do drugs, have sex, make babies, and get money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?

Thomas Szasz

Inspirational, Baby, Sex

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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

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

Thomas Szasz

Investing, Statistics, Clients

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

Thomas Szasz

Sex, Disease, Masturbation

The Second Sin (1973) "Sex"

48 Copy quote

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

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