Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It is a human rights abuse. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
The language of science—and especially of a science of man—is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Mental illness is a myth, whose function is to disguise and thus render more palatable the bitter pill of moral conflicts in… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Science can give us power over nature, but it cannot give us power over human nature. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Suicide is a fundamental human right. This does not mean that it is desirable. It only means that society does not have… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
In the 60s people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Mysticism joins and unites; reason divides and separates. People crave belonging more than understanding. Hence the prominent role of mysticism, and the… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
There is a fundamental similarity between the persecution of individuals who engage in consenting homosexual activity in private, or who ingest, inject,… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Individual psychotherapy - that is, engaging a distressed fellow human in a disciplined conversation and human relationship - requires that the therapist… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share Image
Institutional psychiatry is a continuation of the Inquisition. All that has really changed is the vocabulary and the social style. The vocabulary conforms to… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
By pretending that convention is Nature, that disobeying a personal prohibition is a medical illness, they establish themselves as agents of social control and… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
We shall therefore compare the concept of homosexuality as heresy, prevalent in the days of the witch-hunts, with the concept of homosexuality as mental… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
The basic ingredients of psychotherapy are religion, rhetoric, and repression, which are themselves mutually overlapping categories. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
For Jews, the Messiah has never come; for Christians, He has come but once; for modern man, He appears and disappears with increasing rapidity.… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
I submit that the traditional definition of psychiatry, which is still vogue, places it alongside such things as alchemy and astrology, and commits it… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
I believe the time has come to acknowledge that the practice of routine circumcision rests on the absurd premise that the only mammal in… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
He who does not accept and respect those who want to reject life does not truly accept and respect life itself. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
The passion to interpret as madness that with which we disagree seems to have infected the best of contemporary minds. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
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 Copy Share
We have, in our day, witnessed the birth of the Therapeutic State. This is perhaps the major implication of psychiatry as an institution of… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
The homosexual is a scapegoat who evokes no sympathy. Hence, he can only be a victim, never a martyr. — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
People dream of making the virtuous powerful, so they can depend upon them. Since they cannot do that, people choose to make the powerful… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic - in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea -… — Thomas Szasz Copy Share
