Anthony Storr quotes

It is only when we no longer compulsively need someone that we can have a real relationship with them. (Anthony Storr)
Originality implies being bold enough to go beyond accepted norms. View quote
Anthony Storr
If we did not look to marriage as the principal source of happiness, fewer marriages would end in tears. View quote
Anthony Storr
I want to show that the dividing lines between sanity and mental illness have been drawn in the wrong place. View quote
Anthony Storr
With the exception of certain rodents, no other vertebrate except Homo sapiens habitually destroys members of his own species. View quote
Anthony Storr
The sane are madder than we think, the mad saner. View quote
Anthony Storr
The professional must learn to be moved and touched emotionally, yet at the same time stand back objectively: I've seen a lot of damage done by tea and sympathy. View quote
Anthony Storr
I get intrigued by a puzzle, and writing a book is the best way to solve it. View quote
Anthony Storr
Since I was not able wholly to subscribe to any one set of beliefs advanced by any 'guru' I had to fall back on my own, however derivative. View quote
Anthony Storr
Some split between the inner world and outer world is common to all behaviour, and the need to bridge the gap is the source of creative behaviour. View quote
Anthony Storr
In 20th-century England, an individual announcing that he was the son of God and would return after death in glory would probably attract psychiatric attention; but earlier generations might have regarded such claims as unsurprising. (Anthony Storr)
One man's faith is another man's delusion. View quote
Anthony Storr
Few subsequent gurus seem to have matched the simplicity and directness of Jesus′s message; but it must be remembered that we have very little information. If the world had possessed a detailed biographical account of Jesus, an authentic picture of what he was like as a man, it is quite possible that Christianity would not have been estabished as a world religion. View quote
Anthony Storr
In other words, gurus generalize from their own experience. Some gurus are inclined to believe that all humanity should accept their vision: others allege that, when the last trump sounds, their own followers will be saved, whilst the majority of mankind will remain unredeemed. This apparently arrogant assumption is closely connected with certain features of personality displayed by a variety of gurus. View quote
Anthony Storr
It's not psychopathology that counts. It's what you do with it. View quote
Anthony Storr
Gurdjieff then suddenly announced that he was going to Tuapse, on the Black Sea. The dutiful de Hartmanns followed. Their account of an exhausting nocturnal walk forced on them by Gurdjieff in spite of the fact that they were unsuitably clad and also dead tired is a striking example of the autocratic and unreasonable demands which Gurdjieff made on his followers which they nevertheless slavishly obeyed. Olga de Hartmann's feet were so swollen and bleeding that she could not put on her shoes and had to walk barefoot. Thomas de Hartmann had missed a night's sleep because he had been ordered to stay on guard. Their limbs ached and they were both exhausted; but they went on nevertheless. View quote
Anthony Storr