1. “A child becomes an adult when he realizes that he has a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.”
2. "Addiction, obesity, starvation (anorexia nervosa) are political problems, not psychiatric: each condenses and expresses a contest between the individual and some other person or persons in his environment over the control of the individual's body."
3. “A person cannot make another happy, but he can make him unhappy. This is the main reason why there is more unhappiness than happiness in the world.”
4. “Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.”
5. "Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one's self-esteem. That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all."
6. “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.”
7. "If he who breaks the law is not punished, he who obeys it is cheated. This, and this alone, is why lawbreakers ought to be punished: to authenticate as good, and to encourage as useful, law-abiding behavior. The aim of criminal law cannot be correction or deterrence; it can only be the maintenance of the legal order."
8. "In the animal kingdom, the rule is, eat or be eaten; in the human kingdom, define or be defined."
9. "In the past, men created witches; now they create mental patients."
10. "It is easier to do one's duty to others than to one's self. If you do your duty to others, you are considered reliable. If you do your duty to yourself, you are considered selfish."
11. "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
12. ”Knowledge is gained by learning; trust by doubt; skill by practice; and love by love.”
13. “Many modern psychotherapists have adopted as their credo, Socrates' declaration that "the unexamined life is not worth living." But for modern man that is not enough. We should pledge ourselves to the proposition that the irresponsible life is not worth living.”
14. ”Masturbation: the primary sexual activity of mankind. In the nineteenth century it was a disease; in the twentieth, it's a cure.”
15. "Men are afraid to rock the boat in which they hope to drift safely through life's currents, when, actually, the boat is stuck on a sandbar. They would be better off to rock the boat and try to shake it loose, or, better still, jump in the water and swim for the shore."
16. "Men love liberty because it protects them from control and humiliation by others, thus affording them the possibility of dignity; they loathe liberty because it throws them back on their own abilities and resources, thus confronting them with the possibility of insignificance."
17. "Men often treat others worse than they treat themselves, but they rarely treat anyone better. It is the height of folly to expect consideration and decency from a person who mistreats himself."
18. "Narcissist: psychoanalytic term for the person who loves himself more than his analyst; considered to be the manifestation of a dire mental disease whose successful treatment depends on the patient learning to love the analyst more and himself less."
19. "People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But the self is not something that one finds. It is something that one creates."
20. "Permissiveness is the principle of treating children as if they were adults; and the tactic of making sure they never reach that stage."
21. “Science can give us power over nature, but it cannot give us power over human nature.”
22. “The greatest analgesic, soporific, stimulant, tranquilizer, narcotic, and to some extent even antibiotic -- in short, the closest thing to a genuine panacea -- known to medical science is work.”
23. "The many faces of intimacy: the Victorians could experience it through correspondence, but not through cohabitation; contemporary men and women can experience it through fornication, but not through friendship."
24. "The neurotic has problems; the psychotic has solutions…"
25. ”The plague of mankind is the fear and rejection of diversity: monotheism, monarchy, monogamy and, in our age, monomedicine. The belief that there is only one right way to live, only one right way to regulate religious, political, sexual, medical affairs is the root cause of the greatest threat to man: members of his own species, bent on ensuring his salvation, security, and sanity.”
26. "The stupid neither forgive nor forget; the naïve forgive and forget; the wise forgive but do not forget."
27. "The system isn't stupid, but the people in it are."
28. “Traditionally, sex has been a very private, secretive activity. Herein perhaps lies its powerful force for uniting people in a strong bond. As we make sex less secretive, we may rob it of its power to hold men and women together.”
29. "Two wrongs don't make a right, but they make a good excuse."
30. "We often speak of love when we really should be speaking of the drive to dominate or to master, so as to confirm ourselves as active agents, in control of our own destinies and worthy of respect from others."
31. "When a person can no longer laugh at himself, it is time for others to laugh at him."
32. “When religion was strong and science weak,men looked to magic for medicine; Now,when science is strong and religion weak,men look to medicine for magic.”
33. ”Why do children want to grow up? Because they experience their lives as constrained by immaturity and perceive adulthood as a condition of greater freedom and opportunity. But what is there today, in America, that very poor and very rich adolescents want to do but cannot do? Not much: they can "do" drugs, "have" sex, "make" babies, and "get" money (from their parents, crime, or the State). For such adolescents, adulthood becomes synonymous with responsibility rather than liberty. Is it any surprise that they remain adolescents?”
