Thomas Szasz Quotations

Viewing quotes 1 to 14 (14 total)

Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Education]

The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Conformity] [Homosexuality]

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	more quotations on [Happiness]

Happiness is... usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Happiness]

There is no psychology; there is only biography and autobiography.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Psychology]

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.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Society] [Justice]

Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Excuses]

Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can "do" drugs, "have" sex, "make" babies, and "get" money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Teenagers] [Responsibility]

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Boredom]

In the United States today, there is a pervasive tendency to treat children as adults, and adults as children. The options of children are thus steadily expanded, while those of adults are progressively constricted. The result is unruly children and childish adults.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Childhood]

A teacher should have maximal authority, and minimal power.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Teachers]

All drugs of any interest to any moderately intelligent person in America are now illegal.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Drugs]

The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
	- Thomas Szasz	more quotations on [Forgiveness]

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	more quotations on [Medical] [Society]

Viewing quotes 1 to 14 (14 total)

[page 1]