Quotes by Thomas Szasz

About Thomas Szasz:

Thomas Stephen Szasz was a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, and academic. He served for most of his career as professor of psychiatry at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York. A distinguished lifetime fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a life member of the American Psychoanalytic Association, he was best known as a social critic of the moral and scientific foundations of psychiatry, of what he saw as the social control aims of medicine in modern society, and scientism. His books The Myth of Mental Illness (1961) and The Manufacture of Madness (1970) set out some of the arguments most associated with him.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.

Thomas Szasz

A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.

Thomas Szasz

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

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

Doubt is to certainty as neurosis is to psychosis. The neurotic is in doubt and has fears about persons and things; the psychotic has convictions and makes claims about them. In short, the neurotic has problems, the psychotic has solutions.

Thomas Szasz

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

The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are.

Thomas Szasz

There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.

Thomas Szasz

In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.

Thomas Szasz

Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.

Thomas Szasz

Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage.

Thomas Szasz

Mental illness, of course, is not literally a 'thing' - or physical object - and hence it can 'exist' only in the same sort of way in which other theoretical concepts exist.

Thomas Szasz

There is no such thing as mental illness, hence also no such thing as psychotherapy.

Thomas Szasz

'Psychotherapy' is a private, confidential conversation that has nothing to do with illness, medicine, or healing.

Thomas Szasz

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.

Thomas Szasz

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.

Thomas Szasz

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

Thomas Szasz

If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.

Thomas Szasz

If the dead talk to you, you are a spiritualist; if God talks to you, you are a schizophrenic.

Thomas Szasz

Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.

Thomas Szasz

Author Bio

  • NameThomas Szasz
  • DescriptionHungarian psychiatrist
  • BornApril 15, 1920
  • DiedSeptember 8, 2012
  • CountryHungary; United States Of America
  • ProfessionPsychiatrist; Scientist; Writer
  • AwardsHumanist Of The Year