WIST Quotations

Shakespeare, William -- Macbeth, Act 5, sc. 3, l. 50ff (5.3.50-58) (1606)

Dave — Mon, 30 Dec 2024 20:29:56 +0000

MACBETH: Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

DOCTOR:Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.

MACBETH: Throw physic to the dogs. I’ll none of it.

William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English dramatist and poet
Macbeth, Act 5, sc. 3, l. 50ff (5.3.50-58) (1606)
(Source)

Cicero, Marcus Tullius -- Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 3, ch. 3 (3.3) / sec. 5 (3.5) (45 BC) [tr. Yonge (1853)]

Dave — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 20:01:53 +0000

MARCUS: But there are more disorders of the mind than of the body, and they are of a more dangerous nature.

[At et morbi perniciosiores pluresque sunt animi quam corporis; hi enim ipsi odiosi sunt.]

Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Tusculan Disputations [Tusculanae Disputationes], Book 3, ch. 3 (3.3) / sec. 5 (3.5) (45 BC) [tr. Yonge (1853)]
(Source)

(Source (Latin)). Other translations:

Whereas, in truth, there are more and more dangerous Diseases of the Soul, than of the Body.
[tr. Wase (1643)]

But there are more disorders of the mind than of the body, for the generality, and of a more severe nature.
[tr. Main (1824)]

The diseases of the mind are more pernicious, as well as more numerous, than those of the body.
[tr. Otis (1839)]

But there are more harmful disorders of the soul than of the body, and more of them.
[tr. Peabody (1886)]

The diseases of the mind are more destructive and in greater number than those of the body.
[tr. Taylor/Hunt (1916)]

No, the sicknesses of the mind are both more destructive and more numerous than those of the body.
[tr. Graver (2002)]

Dolnick, Edward -- Madness on the Couch, ch. 18 (1998)

Dave — Wed, 07 Apr 2021 14:51:58 +0000

From the simple observation that mental illness is marked by odd behavior flows a host of problems. For nothing seems clearer than that we are responsible for our behavior; from there, it seems only a small step to the conclusion that a disease characterized by strange behavior must be a disease under our control. And so we appeal to willpower in the devout belief that we can think our way to mental health. We advise the victim of depression to look on the bright side; we tell the person in the midst of a sky-high manic episode to take a deep breath and calm down. When it comes to mental illness, we are all Christian Scientists.

Edward Dolnick (b. 1952) American writer
Madness on the Couch, ch. 18 (1998)
(Source)

Eisenberg, Leon -- “The social construction of the human brain,” American Journal of Psychiatry (Nov 1995)

Dave — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:59:36 +0000

Psychiatry is all biological and all social. there is no mental function without brain and social context. To ask how much of mind is biological and how much social is as meaningless as to ask how much of the area of a rectangle is due to its width and how much to its height, or how much of the phenotype is due to genes and how much to environment.

Leon Eisenberg (1922–2009) American psychiatrist and medical educator
“The social construction of the human brain,” American Journal of Psychiatry (Nov 1995)
(Source)

Peter, Lawrence J. -- (Attributed)

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 19:00:00 +0000

Psychiatry enables us to correct our faults by confessing our parents’ shortcomings.

Lawrence J. Peter (1919–1990) American educator, management theorist
(Attributed)