He who considers disease results to be the disease itself, and expects to do away with these as diseases, is insane. It is an insa...nity in medicine, an insanity that has grown out of the milder forms of mental disorder in science, crazy whims.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
On the whole, "organic" illnesses of the body are viewed as a misfortune over which the victim has little control. Not so for "men...tal" illnesses. These diseases of the mind become diseases of the "self." We (our "selves") can distance ourselves from our "bodily" illnesses: "my leg is broken" or "my heart is failing." But, because of mind-body dualism, our mind is our self. "My mind is sick" is not differentiated psychologically from "I am sick." We cannot distance ourselves, take a detached view of our minds: we are our minds. When a disease affects brain function, the afflicted person and those around him feel that the "self" must be somehow in control of the disorder of "self."LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Even if someone knew the entire physical history of the world, and every mental event were identical with a physical, it would not... follow that he could predict or explain a single mental event (so described, of course).LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
A sweet disorder in the dress Kindles in clothes a wantonness:... A lawn about the shoulders thrown Into a fine distraction: An erring lace, which here and there Enthralls the crimson stomacher: A cuff neglectful, and thereby Ribbands to flow confusedly: A winning wave (deserving note) In the tempestuous petticoat: A careless shoestring, in whose tie I see a wild civility: Do more bewitch me than when art Is too precise in every part.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Involuntary mental hospitalization is like slavery. Refining the standards for commitment is like prettifying the slave plantation...s. The problem is not how to improve commitment, but how to abolish it.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
No further evidence is needed to show that "mental illness" is not the name of a biological condition whose nature awaits to be el...ucidated, but is the name of a concept whose purpose is to obscure the obvious.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The female sex have long been the acknowledged possessors of a sort of mental quickness and intellectual acumen, or rather sharpne...ss of vision, which may be better understood by the term sprightliness of imagination, which has enabled them to discern, or at least to recognize those smaller springs of action that regulate the conduct of mankind, which, from their supposed insignificancy, have escaped the grosser sex.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »