No further evidence is needed to show that 'mental illness' is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be elucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.
Thomas SzaszRead
Adulthood is the ever-shrinking period between childhood and old age. It is the apparent aim of modern industrial societies to reduce this period to a minimum.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on how adulthood is fleeting, especially in today's fast-paced society.
Thomas Szasz's quote emphasizes the brevity of adulthood in contrast to childhood and old age, suggesting that contemporary industrial societies prioritize efficiency and productivity, which in turn minimizes the time spent in the adult phase of life. This notion raises questions about the value and experience of adulthood amid societal pressures and expectations.
Themes
AdulthoodChildhoodSocietyTimeIndustrial
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about embracing adulthood without losing the childlike wonder, one might quote Szasz.
More from Thomas Szasz
All quotes βClassifying thoughts, feelings and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying whale as fish.
Thomas SzaszRead
Addiction, obesity, starvation (anorexia nervosa) are political problems, not psychiatric: each condense and expresses a contest between the individual and some other person or persons in his environment over the control of the individual's body.
Thomas SzaszRead
In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.
Thomas SzaszRead
Self-respect is to the soul as oxygen is to the body. Deprive a person of oxygen, and you kill his body; deprive him of self-respect and you kill his spirit.
Thomas SzaszRead
The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naive forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget.
Thomas SzaszRead
Similar quotes
To what expedient then shall we finally resort, for maintaining in practice the necessary partition of power among the several departments, as laid down in the constitution? The only answer that can be given is, that as all these exterior provisions are found to be inadequate, the defect must be supplied, by so contriving the interior structure of the government, as that its several constituent parts may, by their mutual relations, be the means of keeping each other in their proper places.
James MadisonRead
The process of shaping opinion, attitudes, and perceptions was termed the 'engineering of consent' by one of the founders of the modern public relations industry, Edward Bernays.
Noam ChomskyRead
I love to doubt as well as know.
Dante AlighieriRead
The question is not, "Do you know you are a sinner?" the question is this, "As you have heard me preach the Gospel, has God so worked in your life that the sin you once loved you now hate?"
Paul WasherRead
To believe in Jesus is to accept what he says, even when it runs contrary to what others are saying. It means rejecting the lure of sin, however attractive it may be, in order to set out on the difficult path of the Gospel virtues.
Pope John Paul IiRead
War forgets peace. Peace forgives war. War is the death of the life human. Peace is the birth of the Life Divine. Our vital passions want war. Our psychic emotions desire peace.
Sri ChinmoyRead