Anthony Storr Quotes

32 quotes in 539 categories

• It is true that many creative people fail to make mature personal relationships, and some are extremely isolated. It is also true that, in some…
• If creative work protects a man against mental illness, it is small wonder that he pursues it with avidity; and even if the state of…
• All the world loves a lover, and a lover loves all the world.
• The professional must learn to be moved and touched emotionally, yet at the same time stand back objectively: I've seen a lot of damage done…
• Had [Winston Churchill] been a stable and equable man, he could never have inspired the nation. In 1940, when all the odds were against Britain,…
• The human spirit is not indestructible; but a courageous few discover that, when in hell, they are granted a glimpse of heaven.
• In a culture in which interpersonal relationships are generally considered to provide the answer to every form of distress, it is sometimes difficult to persuade…
• Whether a belief is considered to be a delusion or not depends partly upon the intensity with which it is defended, and partly upon the…
• The ecstatic state of wholeness is bound to be transient because it has no part in the total pattern of ‘adaptation through maladaptation’ which is…
• It is a tragic paradox that the very qualities that have led to man's extraordinary capacity for success are also those most likely to destroy…
• Avoidance behavior is a response designed to protect the infant from behavioral disorganization. If we transfer this concept to adult life, we can see that…
• If we did not look to marriage as the principal source of happiness, fewer marriages would end in tears.
• The creative consequences of man's imaginative strivings may never make him whole; but they constitute his deepest consolations and his greatest glories.
• So-called "inspiration" is no more than an extreme example of a process which constantly goes on in the minds of all of us.
• When a man suffers from delusions he is described as mad but when a million do so they belong to a world religion
• With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species.
• I get intrigued by a puzzle, and writing a book is the best way to solve it.
• It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it.
• Since I was not able wholly to subscribe to any one set of beliefs advanced by any 'guru' I had to fall back on my…
• The sane are madder than we think, the mad saner.

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