Quotes
From ‘Instincts of the Herd in Peace and War’ (1942 ed. pg. 90):
‘It has already been pointed out how dangerous it would be to breed man for reason - that is, against suggestibility. The idea is a fit companion for the device of breeding against “degeneracy”. The degenerate – that is, the mentally unstable – have demonstrated by the mere fact of instability that they possess the quality of sensitiveness to feeling and to experience, for it is this which has prevented them from applying the remedy of rationalization or exclusion when they have met with experience conflicting with the herd suggestion.‘
‘It is interesting to notice that in discussing the mechanism of psychoanalysis in liberating the ‘abnormal’ patient from his symptoms, Freud repeatedly lays stress on the fact that the efficient factor in the process is not the actual introduction of the suppressed experiences into the conscious field, but the overcoming of the resistances to such an endeavour. I have attempted to show that these resistances or counter-impulses are of environmental origin, and owe their strength to the specific sensitiveness of the gregarious mind. Resistances of similar type and identical origin are responsible for the formation of the so-called normal type of mind. It is a principal thesis of an earlier essay in this book that this normal type is far from being psychologically healthy, is far from rendering available the full capacity of the mind for foresight and progress, and being in exclusive command of directing power in the world, is a danger to civilization.’ -
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Famous quotes containing the word quotes:
“Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say “I think,” “I am,” but quotes some saint or sage.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Young people of high school age can actually feel themselves changing. Progress is almost tangible. It’s exciting. It stimulates more progress. Nevertheless, growth is not constant and smooth. Erik Erikson quotes an aphorism to describe the formless forming of it. “I ain’t what I ought to be. I ain’t what I’m going to be, but I’m not what I was.””
—Stella Chess (20th century)
“A great man quotes bravely, and will not draw on his invention when his memory serves him with a word as good. What he quotes, he fills with his own voice and humour, and the whole cyclopedia of his table-talk is presently believed to be his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)