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Portrait of R. D. Laing

R. D. Laing

(1927–1989) Military Physician

105 quotes in 576 categories

R. D. Laing was a military physician, best known for Reason & violence.

Quick Facts About R. D. Laing

Born: October 7, 1927
Died: August 23, 1989
Profession: Military Physician
Notable works: Reason & violence

About R. D. Laing

Ronald David Laing, usually cited as R. D. Laing, was a Scottish psychiatrist who wrote extensively on mental illness, particularly psychosis and schizophrenia. Politically, Laing was regarded as a thinker of the New Left. He has been theatrically portrayed by Mike Maran, Alan Cox, Billy Mack, and David Tennant in the 2017 film Mad to Be Normal.

Biography source: Wikipedia

Quotes by R. D. Laing

To live in the past or in the future may be less satisfying than to live in the present, but it can…

Live in the present

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We must remember that we are living in an age in which the ground is shifting and the foundations are shaking. I…

Age

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We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when…

Change

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Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed,…

Behavior

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How do we define, how do we describe, how do we explain and/or understand ourselves? What sort of creatures do we take…

Accounts

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There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that…

Life

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The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice…

Deeds

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The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice.

Failing

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In the society of men the truth resides now less in what things are than in what they are not. Our social…

Beauty

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The schizophrenic may indeed be mad. He is mad. He is not ill. I have been told by people who have been…

Changed

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What is to be done? We who are still half alive, living in the often fibrillating heartland of a senescent capitalism --…

Alive

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From the alienated starting point of our pseudo-sanity, everything is equivocal. Our sanity is not "true" sanity. Their madness is not "true"…

Artifacts

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In describing one way of going mad, I shall try to show that there is a comprehensible transition from the sane schizoid…

Describing

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Doctors have throughout time made fortunes on killing their patients with their cures. The difference in psychiatry is that it is the…

Cures

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A psychiatrist who professes to be a healer of souls, but who keeps people asleep, treats them for waking up, and drugs…

Crazy

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The truth brings with it a great measure of absolution, always.

Absolution

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Schizophrenia is the name for a condition that most psychiatrists ascribe to patients they call schizophrenic.

Conditions

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The individual in the ordinary circumstances of living may feel more unreal than real; in a literal sense, more dead than alive;…

Alive

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Where can you scream? It's a serious question: where can you go in society and scream?

Scream

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Psychological breakdowns are actually breakthroughs to enlightenment.

Breakdown

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When family relations are no longer harmonious, we have filial children and devoted parents.

Children

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Freud was a hero. He descended to the Underworld and met there stark terrors. He carried with him his theory as a…

Hero

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To mystify, in the active sense, is to befuddle, cloud, obscure, mask whatever is going on, whether this be experience, action, or…

Action

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Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God himself is mad.

Depression

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What we think is less than what we know; What we know is less than what we love; What we love is…

Inspirational

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R. D. Laing by topic

Ifs (13) Men (12) Time (10) May (10) World (9) Knows (9) Thinking (8) Reality (8)