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.
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness is often viewed as a subjective and elusive state, shifting in perception between generations.
This quote by Thomas Szasz reflects on the often transient and subjective nature of happiness, suggesting that it is a concept that people frequently misattribute to others rather than recognizing its personal and individual essence. By indicating that adults view happiness in relation to children and vice versa, Szasz highlights how society's understanding of happiness can be flawed and misaligned, as it is often projected onto others rather than being truly understood within oneself.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about parenting, you might reference this quote to illustrate how perceptions of happiness differ across generations.
More from Thomas Szasz
All quotes βClassifying thoughts, feelings and behaviors as diseases is a logical and semantic error, like classifying whale as fish.
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.
In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.
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.
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.
Similar quotes
This is my creed: Happiness is the only good; reason the only torch; justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.
Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
Happiness is a state of inner fulfillment.
Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
Everything exists in limited quantity - especially happiness.