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Anthony Storr

Anthony Storr Quotes

Psychiatrist

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Famous Anthony Storr Quotes

“A happy marriage perhaps represents the ideal of human relationship -- a setting in which each partner, while acknowledging the need of the other, feels free to be what he or she by nature is: a relationship in which instinct as well as intellect can find expression; in which giving and taking are equal; in which each accepts the other, and I confronts Thou.”

NeedsGivingFeelsHumansWellsAcceptingMarriageExpressionEqualIdealsInstinctIntellectPartnersSettingSettingsHuman RelationsHuman RelationshipsHappy Marriage
Book:The Integrity of the Personality
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“What chiefly concerns and alarms many of us are the problems arising from religious fanaticism. As long as large numbers of militant enthusiasts are persuaded that they alone have access to the truth, and that the rest of us are infidels, we remain under threat. Lord Acton's famous phrase about power can be used of another danger. Dogma tends to corrupt, and absolute dogma corrupts absolutely.”

LongProblemUsedReligiousNumbersLordAtheismDangerConcernAbsolutesThreatPositive AtheismAccessPhrasesDogmaFanaticismAlarmsLarge NumbersMilitantInfidel
Author:Anthony Storr
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“The word "jealousy" is often used as if it were synonymous with envy; but I think the distinction worth preserving. Jealousy is predominantly concerned with the fear of loss of something one possesses, envy with the wish to own something another possesses. Othello suffers from the fear that he has lost Desdemona's love. Iago suffers from envy of the position held by Cassio, to which he feels entitled.”

IfsThinkingFeelsUsedSufferingLostWishLossPositionConcernedEnvyJealousyDistinctionEntitledDesdemona
Author:Anthony Storr
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“It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some instances, trauma, in the shape of early separation or bereavement, has steered the potentially creative person toward developing aspects of his personality which can find fulfillment in comparative isolation. But this does not mean that solitary, creative pursuits are themselves pathological.”

PeopleMeanPersonsDoeCreativeFailingPersonalityShapesAspectTraumaSeparationPursuitInstanceDevelopingFulfillmentIsolationMatureIsolatedSolitaryBereavementCreative PeoplePersonal RelationshipsCreative Person
Book:Solitude: A Return to the Self
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“If creative work protects a man against mental illness, it is small wonder that he pursues it with avidity; and even if the state of mind he is seeking to avoid is no more than a mild state of depression or apathy, this still constitutes a cogent reason for engaging in creative work even when it brings no obvious external benefit in its train.”

IfsMenWritingMindStillsStatesReasonWonderCreativeProtectBenefitsTrainIllnessObviousSeekingMental IllnessPursueState Of MindApathyEngagingCreative Work
Author:Anthony Storr
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“Had [Winston Churchill] been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain, a leader of sober judgment might well have concluded that we were finished.”

MenWellsMightNationsLeaderDepressionJudgmentInspiredFinishedBritainStableOddsSoberBipolar
Book:Churchill's Black Dog, Kafka's Mice, and Other Phenomena of the Human Mind
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“In a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade well-meaning helpers that solitude can be as therapeutic as emotional support.”

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Book:Solitude a Return to the Self
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“The ecstatic state of wholeness is bound to be transient because it has no part in the total pattern of ‘adaptation through maladaptation’ which is characteristic of our species…the hunger of imagination, the desire and pursuit of the whole, take origin from the realization that something is missing, from awareness of incompleteness.”

StatesWholeDesireImaginationAwarenessMissingSpeciesBoundsHungerPatternsPursuitRealizationCharacteristicsWholenessAdaptationTransientEcstaticIncompleteness
Book:Solitude a Return to the Self
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“Avoidance behavior is a response designed to protect the infant from behavioral disorganization. If we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see that an avoidant infant might very well develop into a person whose principal need was to find some kind of meaning and order in life which was not entirely, or even chiefly, dependent upon interpersonal relationships”

IfsNeedsWellsKindPersonsMightOrderProtectBehaviorConceptsAdultsResponseDependentPrincipalInfantAvoidanceTransfersInterpersonalInterpersonal RelationshipDisorganization
Book:Solitude a Return to the Self
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“It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it.”

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Author:Anthony Storr
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