Thomas Szasz Quotes, Thoughts and images
If you talk to God, you are praying; If God talks to you, you have schizophrenia.
Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.
In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined.
In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.
We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
Labeling a child as mentally ill is stigmatization, not diagnosis. Giving a child a psychiatric drug is poisoning, not treatment.
What people really need and demand from life is not wealth, comfort, or esteem, but games worth playing
The neurotic has problems; the psychotic has solutions.
Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It is a human rights abuse.
The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else.
Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; and love by love.
Psychiatry is probably the single most destructive force that has affected American Society within the last fifty years.
When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.
Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.
The battle for the world is the battle for definitions.
Science can give us power over nature, but it cannot give us power over human nature.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.
The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are.
The poor need jobs and money, not psychoanalysis. The uneducated need knowledge and skills, not psychoanalysis.
Work is pushing matter around. Politics is pushing people around.
Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.
A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.
Sex is a body-contact sport. It is safe to watch but more fun to play.
All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal.