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Judges and prosecutors, lawyers and psychiatrists, all protest their passionate desire to know why a person accused of a crime did what he did. But their actions completely belie their words: their efforts are now directed toward letting everyone speak in court but the defendant himself -- especially if he is accused of a political or psychiatric crime.

— Thomas Szasz The Second Sin (1973)

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More quotes by Thomas Szasz

The wise treat self-respect as non-negotiable, and will not trade it for health or wealth or anything else.

The Second Sin (1973)

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.

The Second Sin (1973)

In the past, men created witches: now they create mental patients.

The Manufacture of Madness (1970)

Since this is the age of science, not religion, psychiatrists are our rabbis, heroin is our pork, and the addict is the unclean person.

The Second Sin (1973)

The language of science—and especially of a science of man—is, necessarily, anti-individualistic, and hence a threat to human freedom and dignity.

Anti-Freud (1990)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Szasz (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.