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Thomas Szasz

Thomas Szasz Quotes

Psychiatrist

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Famous Thomas Szasz Quotes

“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.”

ChildrenSelfSchoolYoungSufferingEducationLearningTeachingSelf EsteemPositiveConsciousImportanceEsteemInjuryWillingnessYoung ChildrenTeaching And LearningSchool TeachersSelf-importanceChildren LearningStudent LearningFirst Day Of SchoolSchools And TeachersYoung StudentsWillingness To Learn
Book:Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary
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“Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.”

MenMindIndividualResponsibilityMoralSocietyMoralityAngerGuiltDemocraticMeaningfulPunishmentCompromiseDistinctionCollectivesMeaninglessIndividual Responsibility
Book:The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary
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“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.”

PeopleLifePersonsSelfWisdomFoundPsychologyWise WordsWords Of WisdomFindingsCreatingHigh SchoolDiscoveryExcellenceSelf DiscoveryFinding YourselfDiscoveringTrue SelfKnow YourselfThyselfBe True To YourselfTrue To YourselfKnow ThyselfLosing YourselfSelf KnowingDiscovering YourselfStay True To YourselfFinding The OneDiscovering SelfDiscovery In LifeDiscovering Your True SelfFinding Your PathBeing Your True SelfLost YourselfCreating YourselfDiscovering ThingsDiscovering Something
Book:Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary
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“Individual psychotherapy - that is, engaging a distressed fellow human in a disciplined conversation and human relationship - requires that the therapist have the proper temperament and philosophy of life for such work. By that I mean that the therapist must be patient, modest, and a perceptive listener, rather than a talker and advice-giver.”

HumansMeanPhilosophyIndividualAdviceLife PhilosophyConversationFellowsPatientListenersModestEngagingTemperamentBe PatientGiverTherapistsHuman RelationshipsPsychotherapyTalkers
Author:Thomas Szasz
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“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.”

MenWayAgePoliticalBeliefCausesReligiousMankindSecurityMembersDiversityRootsSalvationThreatSpeciesAffairMedicalRejectionConformitySanityConformBentRight WayPlagueMonarchyWay To LiveMonogamyMonotheismRoot Cause
Author:Thomas Szasz
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“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.”

ChildrenStatesTodayParentUnitedResultsUnited StatesAdultsTreatsTendenciesUnrulyLarge Family
Book:The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary
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“Is psychiatry a medical enterprise concerned with treating diseases, or a humanistic enterprise concerned with helping persons with their personal problems? Psychiatry could be one or the other, but it cannot--despite the pretensions and protestations of psichiatrists--be both.”

PersonsHelpingProblemDiseaseConcernedMedicalDespiteEnterprisePsychiatryPretensionHumanisticPersonal Problems
Book:Insanity: The Idea and Its Consequences
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“Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation by others, thus affording them the possibility of dignity; they loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, thus confronting them with the possibility of insignificance.”

MenAbilityLibertyPossibilityProtectResourcesDignityLibertarianLibertarianismHumiliationConfrontingLoatheInsignificanceAffording
Book:Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary
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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.”

IfsLawOrderBreakOughtBehaviorAimCriminalsPunishmentAbidingCheatedMaintenanceCorrectionsCriminal LawDeterrenceCriminal BehaviorLaw Breakers
Book:The Meaning of Mind: Language, Morality, and Neuroscience
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“We achieve active mastery over illness and death by delegating all responsibility for their management to physicians, and by exiling the sick and the dying to hospitals. But hospitals serve the convenience of staff not patients: we cannot be properly ill in a hospital, nor die in one decently; we can do so only among those who love and value us. The result is the institutionalized dehumanization of the ill, characteristic of our age.”

LoveAgeValuesDiesCan DoResultsResponsibilityAchieveDyingSickManagementPatientIllIllnessActiveCharacteristicsHospitalsMasteryStaffPhysiciansConvenienceDehumanizationIllness And Death
Author:Thomas Szasz
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“Had the white settlers in North America called the natives 'Americans' instead of 'Indians', the early Americans could not have said that the 'only good Indian is a dead Indian' and could not have deprived them so easily of their lands and lands and lives. Robbing people of their proper names is often the first step in robbing them of their property, liberty, and life.”

PeopleFirstsSaidAmericaNamesWhiteLibertyStepsLandPropertyIndianFirst StepsDeprivedNorth AmericaRobbingSettlers
Book:Words to the Wise: A Medical-Philosophical Dictionary
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