Thomas Szasz

“Psychiatric expert testimony: mendacity masquerading as medicine.”

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

“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.”

“The concept of disease is fast replacing the concept of responsibility. With increasing zeal Americans use and interpret the assertion "I am sick" as equivalent to the assertion "I am not responsible": Smokers say they are not responsible for smoking, drinkers that they are not responsible for drinking, gamblers that they are not responsible for gambling, and mothers who murder their infants that they are not responsible for killing. To prove their point — and to capitalize on their self-destructive and destructive behavior — smokers, drinkers, gamblers, and insanity acquitees are suing tobacco companies, liquor companies, gambling casinos, and physicians.”

“Although both home and mental illness are complex, modern ideas, we have fallen into the habit of using phrases such as "housing the homeless" and "treating the mentally ill" as if we knew what counts as housing a homeless person or what it means to treat mental illness. But we do not. We have deceived ourselves that having a home and being mentally healthy are our natural conditions, and that we become homeless or mentally ill as a result of "losing" our homes or our minds. The opposite is the case. We are born without a home and without reason, and have to exert ourselves and are fortunate if we succeed in building a secure home and a sound mind.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.”

“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.”

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

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

“Punishment is now unfashionable... because it creates moral distinctions among men, which, to the democratic mind, are odious. We prefer a meaningless collective guilt to a meaningful individual responsibility.”

“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.”

“Once a person has made some sort of stable, symbolic connection between two things, the connection will influence his subsequent behavior and will generate its own 'proof.' This is why it is idle and foolish to try to 'refute' religious, political, and similar beliefs with empirical arguments about referents that are symbols to the believer but not to the non-believer.”

“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.”

“There are two kinds of 'disabled' persons: Those who dwell on what they have lost and those who concentrate on what they have left.”

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

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

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