Where can you scream? It's a serious question: where can you go in society and scream? R. D. Laing More Quotes by R. D. Laing More Quotes From R. D. Laing The psychiatrist must become a fellow traveler with his patient. R. D. Laing psychiatrytravelerpatient In our society many of the old rituals have lost much of their power. New ones have not arisen. R. D. Laing ritualour-societylost We all live under the constant threat of our own annihilation. Only by the most outrageous violation of ourselves have we achieved our capacity to live in relative adjustment to a civilization apparently driven to its own destruction. R. D. Laing drivendestructioncivilization Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God himself is mad. R. D. Laing maddepressionreligion The human mind has to ask "Who, what, whence, whither, why am I?" And it is very doubtful if the human mind can answer any of these questions. R. D. Laing doubtfulanswersmind The fountain has not played itself out, the Flame still shines, the River still flows, the Spring still bubbles forth, the Light has not faded. But between us and It, there is a veil which is more like fifty feet of solid concrete. Deus absconditus. Or we have absconded. R. D. Laing flameslightspring True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself. False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is. R. D. Laing assumingguiltpeople Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent. R. D. Laing sexually-transmitted-diseasessuccesslife No one has the answer: we are answer and question. R. D. Laing answers A mental healer may be a psychiatrist. A psychiatrist may or may not be a mental healer. R. D. Laing psychiatristhealermay Our behavior is a function of our experience. We act according to the way we see things. If our experience is destroyed, our behavior will be destructive. If our experience is destroyed, we have lost our own selves. R. D. Laing behaviorselfway The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and far more estranged from 'reality',than many of the people on whom the label 'psychotic' is affixed R. D. Laing labelsrealitypeople Long before a thermonuclear war can come about, we have had to lay waste our own sanity. We begin with the children. It is imperative to catch them in time. Without the most thorough and rapid brainwashing their dirty minds would see through our dirty tricks. Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.s if possible. R. D. Laing warchildrendirty When family relations are no longer harmonious, we have filial children and devoted parents. R. D. Laing parentrelationchildren Our civilization represses not only "the instincts", not only sexuality, but any form of transcendence. Among one-dimensional men, it is not surprising that someone with an insistent experience of other dimensions, that he cannot entirely deny or forget, will run the risk either of being destroyed by the others, or of betraying what he knows. R. D. Laing runningmencivilization From the moment of birth, when the Stone-Age baby confronts the twentieth-century mother, the baby is subjected to these forces of violence called love, as its father and mother and their parents and their parents before them, have been. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potential. R. D. Laing motherbabylove If we can revert to the truth, then a great deal of one's suffering can be erased, because a great deal of one's suffering is based on sheer lies. R. D. Laing dealssufferinglying They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game. R. D. Laing breakgamesplay Schizophrenia is the name for a condition that most psychiatrists ascribe to patients they call schizophrenic. R. D. Laing schizophreniapatientnames Before one goes through the gate one may not be aware there is a gate One may think there is a gate to go through and look a long time for it without finding it One may find it and it may not open If it opens one may be through it As one goes through it one sees that the gate one went through was the self that went through it no one went through a gate there was no gate to go through no one ever found a gate no one ever realized there was never a gate R. D. Laing selflongthinking
