Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Joost Meerloo

Quote by Joost Meerloo

“The tension of a mysterious danger is even more unbearable than danger itself. People hate the vacuum of an unknown situation. They want security. They even prefer war to the insecure expectation of a war with its threat of enemy surprise. This vague fearful expectation acts on their fantasies. They anticipate all kinds of mysterious dangers; they begin to provoke them. It is the evocation of fear and danger in order to escape the tension of insecurity.”

Quote by Joost Meerloo

Create image

Author

Joost Meerloo
Joost Meerloo

Joost Meerloo was a Dutch doctor and psychologist, born in 1903 in the Netherlands and died in 1976. He made extensive contributions to the fields of psychiatry and psychology, particularly in the study of war trauma and antisocial behavior. more

You May Also Like

“The danger of education, I have found, is that it so easily confuses means with ends. Worse than that, it quite easily forgets both and devotes itself merely to the mass production of uneducated gradtuates - people literaly unfit for anything except to take part in an elaborate and completely artificial charade which they and their contemporaries have conspired to call "life".”

PeopleMeanEndsFoundForgetAtheismDangerMassProductionsArtificialUneducatedMass ProductionCharades
Book:Love and Living
Create image

“To discover the true principles of morality, men have no need of theology, of revelation, or of gods. They need but common sense. They have only to look within themselves, to reflect upon their own nature, to consult their obvious interests, to consider the object of society and of each of the members who compose it, and they will easily understand that virtue is an advantage, and that vice is an injury to beings of the species.”

MenNeedsLooksInterestCommonPrinciplesVirtueAtheismObjectsMoralityMembersAdvantageSpeciesVicesObviousTheologyCommon SenseRevelationsInjury
Author:Jean Meslier
Create image

“I kept careful record of the impact of religion on the election in my county. The religious issue permeated every meeting I conducted. It influenced Republicans and Democrats alike. Ministers preached politics publicly and churches distributed the most vicious electioneering materials. Practically no one I met escaped the pressure of this overriding problem and both parties were ultimately forced to make their major calculations with the religious question a foremost consideration.”

ProblemChurchReligiousPartyIssuesRecordsAtheismMaterialsRepublicanMetsMajorsPressureElectionImpactMeetingsDemocratCarefulMinistersConsiderationViciousCalculationsCounty
Author:James A. Michener
Create image

“Whatever may be the immediate gains and losses, the dangers to our safety arising from political suppression are always greater than the dangers to that safety arising from political freedom. Suppression is always foolish. Freedom is always wise. That is the faith, the experimental faith, by which we Americans have undertaken to live.”

MayPoliticalLossGreaterWiseAtheismDangerGainsSafetyFoolishSuppressionPolitical FreedomGains And Losses
Author:Alexander Meiklejohn
Create image

“Meiklejohn's position is that free speech in a democracy is not an absolute flowing from the boundless source of some presumed 'natural right.' It is a practical necessity of 'self-government by universal suffrage,' for if the citizens are not permitted to argue out the issues of government, how can they be what they must be in a democracy - the rulers as well as the ruled?”

IfsWellsSelfGovernmentNaturalDemocracyIssuesAtheismPositionSourceCitizensSpeechUniversalAbsolutesArguingPracticalsRulersFree SpeechBoundlessSuffrageSelf-governmentUniversal Suffrage
Author:Max Lerner
Create image