Notable quotes, excerpts, and profound lines.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by gmw

Am I the only one to find this statement ... curious? This is probably not the place to discuss it in detail, I'm just trying to work out just how thick I am. Does anyone know if Alfred Alder was making a serious claim that "neurotics, psychotics [... etc]" somehow make deliberate decisions "lacking in social interest"? It seems to me there may be a confusion of cause and effect here, or I am missing something (wouldn't be the first time).

I agree that as a blanket statement, Adler seemed to be taking too much for granted, but in all fairness Adler was writing those words largely before the modern advances in modern psychopharmaceutical revolution. I certainly think the connection is more involved than that statement would indicate, but I do believe there is a reciprocal relationship between mental illness and social behavior. Everyone knows people smile because they're happy, but recent research indicates it's a two-way street: Smiling can brighten one's mood. In like manner, I believe that when we choose to care for others, it has a beneficial effect on our own well-being. Naturally there are limits to our ability to determine the state of our own mental health that are imposed by the physical makeup of each individual, but as I see it our mental health is no more all nature than it is all nurture.

[TenaciousBadger]

Originally Posted by techmobby

"With our thoughts, we create our world" - Buddha
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure to try to please everyone"

Good ones
Welcome to the forum!

A dog wags its tail with its heart.

--Martin Buxbaum

[gmw]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I agree that as a blanket statement, Adler seemed to be taking too much for granted, but in all fairness Adler was writing those words largely before the modern advances in modern psychopharmaceutical revolution. I certainly think the connection is more involved than that statement would indicate, but I do believe there is a reciprocal relationship between mental illness and social behavior. Everyone knows people smile because they're happy, but recent research indicates it's a two-way street: Smiling can brighten one's mood. In like manner, I believe that when we choose to care for others, it has a beneficial effect on our own well-being. Naturally there are limits to our ability to determine the state of our own mental health that are imposed by the physical makeup of each individual, but as I see it our mental health is no more all nature than it is all nurture.

Like the old Reader's Digest segment: "Laughter is the Best Medicine". I can certainly agree with that. I guess it was Alder's failure examples that really had me puzzled, but as you say, a lot has changed since then.

"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." - Abbie Hoffman

[astrangerhere]

A well proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias; one of which we may safely say that it will never cause its owner to be confined as a madman, tortured as a heretic, or crucified as a blasphemer. Also, on the other hand, that it will never cause him to be applauded as a prophet, revered as a priest, or exalted as a king. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity.

from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

"Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger." - Abbie Hoffman

You want fries with that? Wonderful quote!

[TenaciousBadger]

If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee:
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye woman, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee, give recompense.
Thy love is such I can no way repay,
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let’s so persevere
That when we live no more, we may live ever


---To My Dear and Loving Husband, Anne Bradstreet(1612 - 1672) America's first published poet

[astrangerhere]

"It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter."
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

"It is hard to have patience with people who say 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible. You might as well say that birth doesn't matter."
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

I like it!

"Holy Rollers and jumpers come out,
They holler, they jump and they shout.
Give your money to Jesus they say,
He will cure all diseases today.
If you fight hard for children and wife
Try to get something good in this life
You're a sinner and bad man, they tell,
When you die you will sure go to hell.

Chorus:

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die."

- Joe Hill

[WT Sharpe]

.....[O]ur understanding of the world around us comes from the merest echoes of reality—the photons of light that bombard the eye, the vibrations in the air that strike the ear, the floating molecules that rush into the nostrils.
..........— Colin Blakemore (1944 - ), British neurobiologist, Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Oxford and University of Warwick and former Chief Executive of the British Medical Research Council. The Mind Machine (BBC Books, 1990).

[astrangerhere]

Taking a page from WT's book here and posting two for comparison's sake (also in honor of the MR Literary Book Club selecting a Dickens for July):

"When I speak of home, I speak of the place where -- in default of a better -- those I love are gathered together; and if that place were a gypsy's tent, or a barn, I should call it by the same good name notwithstanding." -Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens

"And though home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit answered to, in strongest conjuration. - Martin Chuzzlewit by Charles Dickens

[Billi]

Although my home has been broken
It's the best home I ever had
(Neil Young, Crime in the City)

[astrangerhere]

Drink because you are happy, never because you are miserable.

- GK Chesterton in Heretics

[BenG]

"Like I've always said, love wouldn't be blind if the braille weren't so damned much fun."
— Armistead Maupin, Maybe the Moon

[Falcao]

Grand Master Turing once dreamed that he was a machine. When he awoke he exclaimed:

"I don't know whether I am Turing dreaming that I am a machine, or a machine dreaming that I am Turing!"

--- The Tao of Programming, Book 2 - The Ancient Masters