Thomas Szasz Quotes

• Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Religion, Society

  Tags in School

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Definition, Eaten

• A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Power

  Tags in Authority, Minimal, Teachers

• When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Seriousness, Self-Perception, Laugh

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Neurotic, Psychotic, Convictions, Doubt

• 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

  Topics in Children

  Tags in Adulthood

• He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Life

  Tags in Suicide, Reject, Accept

• Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Love

  Tags in Term, Analyst, Psychoanalytic, Dire

• No further evidence is needed to show that ‘mental illness’ is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Nature

  Tags in Obvious, Obscure, Mental Illness

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Tags in Autobiography, Psychology, Biography

Thomas Szasz (30)

Birth:	15th April, 1920
Death:	8th September, 2012
Nationality:	Hungarian
Profession:	Critic, Professor, Psychiatrist

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