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We are born into a world where alienation awaits us. We are potentially men, but are in an alienated state, and this state is not simply a natural system. Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.

R. D. Laing

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R. D. Laing
Age: 61 †
Born: 1927
Born: October 7
Died: 1989
Died: August 23
Author
Existential Therapist
Military Personnel
Military Physician
Non-Fiction Writer
Physician Writer
Psychiatrist
Psychoanalyst
Psychologist
Glasgow
Scotland
Ronald Laing
R.D. Laing
Ronald D. Laing
Ronald David Laing
World
System
Potentially
State
Outrageous
Natural
Achieved
Born
Destiny
States
Beings
Perpetrated
Human
Present
Alienated
Humans
Violence
Awaits
Men
Simply
Alienation

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There are good reasons for being obedient, but being unable to be disobedient is not one of the best reasons.
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Children are not yet fools, but we shall turn them into imbeciles like ourselves, with high I.Q.'s if possible.
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One cannot say everything at once.
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We are all murderers and prostitutes - no matter to what culture, society, class, nation one belongs, no matter how normal, moral, or mature, one takes oneself to be.
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What we think is less than what we know What we know is less than what we love What we love is so much less than what there is. And to that precise extent we are so much less than what we are.
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Perfection is something we should all strive for. It's a duty and a joy to perfect one's nature... The most difficult thing is love. A loveless, driving person that just competes in the rat race is far from perfection in my book.
R. D. Laing
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The dynamics and structures found in those groups called families in our society may not be evident in those groups called families in other places and times.
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What is to be done? We who are still half alive, living in the often fibrillating heartland of a senescent capitalism -- can we do more than reflect the decay around and within us? Can we do more than sing our sad and bitter songs of disillusion and defeat?
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I am quite sure that a good number of cures of psychotics consist in the fact that the patient has decided, for one reason or other, once more to play at being sane.
R. D. Laing
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Alienation as our present destiny is achieved only by outrageous violence perpetrated by human beings on human beings.
R. D. Laing
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Schizophrenia is the name for a condition that most psychiatrists ascribe to patients they call schizophrenic.
R. D. Laing
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The psychiatrist must become a fellow traveler with his patient.
R. D. Laing
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Psychological breakdowns are actually breakthroughs to enlightenment.
R. D. Laing
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Few books today are forgivable.
R. D. Laing
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Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
R. D. Laing
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We are bemused and crazed creatures, strangers to our true selves, to one another, and to the spiritual and material world - mad, even, from an ideal standpoint we can glimpse but not adopt.
R. D. Laing
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If you have passion for what you do, the company you keep, the life you live, it will be reflected in whatever you create. Passion is like that it springs out, jumps, unpredictable and unplanned, into everything we touch. If it doesn't, others know. Passion can't be faked and it can't be manufactured. Which is why it is so priceless.
R. D. Laing
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Schizophrenia is a successful attempt not to adapt to pseudo- social realities.
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Here we have the paradox, the potentially tragic paradox, that our relatedness to others is an essential aspect of our being, as is our separateness, but any particular person is not a necessary part of our being.
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There is no such condition as 'schizophrenia,' but the label is a social fact and the social fact a political event.
R. D. Laing