R. D. Laing (1927-1989)

Quotes

• The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

• We live in a moment of history where change is so speeded up that we begin to see the present only when it is already disappearing.

• 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 mother and father have been, and their parents and their parents before them. These forces are mainly concerned with destroying most of its potentialities. This enterprise is on the whole successful.

• Life is a sexually transmitted disease.

• Perhaps God is not dead; perhaps God is himself mad.

• Insanity: a perfectly rational adjustment to the insane world.