The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, essentially, abnormal.
Karl A. MenningerSet up as an ideal the facing of reality as honestly and as cheerfully as possible.
Karl A. MenningerWe have come to see that just as the child must learn to love wisely, so he must learn to hate expeditiously, to turn destructive tendencies away from himself toward enemies that actually threaten him rather than toward the friendly and the defenseless, the more usual victims of destructive energy.
Karl A. MenningerThe friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward, and we want to sit in their radius.
Karl A. MenningerIt was his optimism that Freud bequeathed to America and it was the optimism of our youthfulness, our freedom from the sterner, sadder tradition of Europe which enabled us to seize his gift.
Karl A. MenningerWe need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do.
Karl A. MenningerNeurotic means he is not as sensible as I am, and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law.
Karl A. MenningerPeople repeat in adult life emotions they experience in childhood. Many of the people whom I spent the last 30 or 40 years treating at so much per minute wouldn't have needed any treatment at all if they had had the right care as children.
Karl A. MenningerTo "know thyself" must mean to know the malignancy of one's own instincts and to know, as well, one's power to deflect it.
Karl A. MenningerLove is a medicine for the sickness of the world; a prescription often given, too rarely taken.
Karl A. MenningerOnce asked what action he would recommend if a person were to feel a nervous breakdown coming on: Lock up your house, go across the railroad tracks, and find someone in need and do something for him.
Karl A. MenningerChess is a more highly symbolic game, but the aggressions are therefore even more frankly represented in the play. It probably began as a war game; that is, the representation of a miniature battle between the forces of two kingdoms
Karl A. MenningerSelf love is not opposed to the love of other people. You cannot really love yourself and do yourself a favor without doing other people a favor, and vice versa.
Karl A. Menninger