“Mysticism,” he likes to say, “is the antidote to fundamentalism.”
“Psychiatric disorders are the only kind of sickness that we as a society regularly respond to not with sympathy but with handcuffs and incarceration. And as more humane and cost-effective ways of treating mental illness have been cut back, we increasingly resort to the law-enforcement toolbox: jails and prisons.”
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“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.”
― Letters and Papers from Prison
― Letters and Papers from Prison
“About a third of my cases are suffering from no clinically definable neurosis, but from the senselessness and emptiness of their lives. This can be defined as the general neurosis of our times.”
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“All of us face barriers—physical, financial, temporal—every day. Some are unquestionably real. But others are plainly artificial—expectations about how well a given system can function, or how much change is too much, or what kinds of behaviors are acceptable. The next time you encounter such a barrier, imposed by people who lack your imagination and drive and creativity, think hard about ignoring it. Solving a problem is hard enough; it gets that much harder if you’ve decided beforehand it can’t be done.”
― Think Like a Freak
― Think Like a Freak
“The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.”
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Jonathan’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Jonathan’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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