Thomas Szasz Quotes

• Psychiatrists classify a person as neurotic if he suffers from his problems in living, and a psychotic if he makes others suffer.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

• Men are rewarded and punished not for what they do, but rather for how their acts are defined. This is why men are more interested in better justifying themselves than in better behaving themselves.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Excuses

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Laughter

  Tags in Longer, Time

• 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

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Humor, Inspirational, Life, Wisdom

  Tags in Excuse

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Tags in Autobiography, Psychology, Biography

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Inspirational, Wisdom

  Tags in Naive, Stupidity, Forget, Forgiveness

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self-Reliance, Autonomy, Independence, Feeds, Bite

• Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Testimony, Masquerading, Psychiatric, Medicine

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Tactic, Permissiveness, Treating, Principle

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in People, Self, Self-Interest, Growth

• 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

• 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

• 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

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Duty, Easier, Self

• 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

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in God, Religion

  Tags in Schizophrenia

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

  Thomas Szasz

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Schizophrenic, Talks

• 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

Thomas Szasz (30)

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

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Today's Anniversary - 23rd December

Births

• 1950 - Michael C. Burgess
• 1979 - Summer Altice
• 1933 - Akihito
• 1945 - Stephen G. Haines
• 1935 - Paul Hornung

Deaths

• 1834 - Thomas Robert Malthus
• 2000 - Victor Borge
• 2007 - Oscar Emmanuel Peterson
• 1972 - Abraham Joshua Heschel
• 1873 - Sarah Grimke