Mental Retardation Quotes

The building housing America's military brass is a five-sided pentagon, but somehow, the people in it still manage to make it the squarest place on earth. The latest evidence? A current military document that lists homosexuality as a mental disorder in the same league as mental retardation - noting, of course, the one difference: retarded people can still get into heaven. ~ Jon Stewart

If the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over and expecting different results, then passion is a form of mental retardation- deliberately blunting our most critical cognitive functions.
- Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy ~ Ryan Holiday

Like other kinds of intelligence, the storyteller's is partly
natural, partly trained. It is composed of several qualities, most
of which, in normal people, are signs of either immaturity or
incivility: wit (a tendency to make irreverent connections);
obstinacy and a tendency toward churlishness (a refusal to
believe what all sensible people know is true); childishness (an
apparent lack of mental focus and serious life purpose, a fondness
for daydreaming and telling pointless lies, a lack of proper
respect, mischievousness, an unseemly propensity for crying
over nothing); a marked tendency toward oral or anal fixation
or both (the oral manifested by excessive eating, drinking,
smoking, and chattering; the anal by nervous cleanliness and
neatness coupled with a weird fascination with dirty jokes);
remarkable powers of eidetic recall, or visual memory (a usual
feature of early adolescence and mental retardation); a strange
admixture of shameless playfulness and embarrassing earnestness,
the latter often heightened by irrationally intense feelings
for or against religion; patience like a cat's; a criminal streak of
cunning; psychological instability; recklessness, impulsiveness,
and improvidence; and finally, an inexplicable and incurable
addiction to stories, written or oral, bad or good. ~ John Gardner

Federal law currently prohibits landlords from discriminating against prospective tenants who have had a felony conviction for drug use. Why? Because drug or alcohol abuse is considered a disability. According to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD): "An individual with a disability is any person who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. The term physical or mental impairment may include, but is not limited to, conditions such as visual or hearing impairment, mobility impairment, HIV infection, mental retardation, drug addiction (except current illegal use of or addiction to drugs), or mental illness."[ii] ~ Brandon Turner

One out of every six American women has so much mercury in her womb that her children are at risk for a grim inventory of diseases, including autism, blindness, mental retardation and heart, liver and kidney disease. ~ Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

Virtually never are murderers the ordinary, law-abiding people against whom gun bans are aimed. Almost without exception, murderers are extreme aberrants with lifelong histories of crime, substance abuse, psychopathology, mental retardation and/or irrational violence against those around them, as well as other hazardous behavior, e.g., automobile and gun accidents. ~ Don Kates

When a mentally retarded child is born, the religious question we often ask is, "Why does God let this happen?" The better question to pose is to ask, "What kind of community should we be so that mental retardation isn't a barrier to the enjoyment of one's full humanity?" ~ Harold S. Kushner

As the diagnosis of autism is increasing the diagnosis of mental retardation is decreasing. And more and more on the other end, the high end, more children who are just a little bit off, who ordinarily you would not single out now are being described as perhaps Asperger's syndrome or on the high end of the autism spectrum, so I don't believe there is an epidemic. ~ Gerald Fischbach

If there ever was someone who had a control over you, someone who could cause you the greatest pain, someone who could ignore your most necessary requirements and someone for whom forgiveness were truly difficult to render, that person is none other than YOU. ~ Stephen Richards

The guesses which serve to give mental unity and wholeness to a chaos of scattered particulars, are accidents which rarely occur to any minds but those abounding in knowledge and disciplined in intellectual combinations. ~ John Stuart Mill

Religion is capable of driving people to such dangerous folly that faith seems to me to qualify as a kind of mental illness. ~ Richard Dawkins

Physically, I'm healthy as a horse, always held up. But in the mental illness department, I got my share. It's just what I got. ~ Shawn Colvin

It was not about physical strength, Wit reminded himself. It was 90 percent mental, 10 percent physical. That's what the SEAL instructors were looking for: men and women who could disregard the pleadings of the body. Pain was nothing, sleep was nothing. What was chaffed skin, wrecked muscles, bleeding sores? The body chooses to be sore. The body chooses to be exhausted. But the SEAL mind rejects it. The SEAL mind commands the body, not the other way around. ~ Orson Scott Card

This system that has been created for us, stifles the mind, thus why some suffer from mental illness; especially those who internalize their condition. To hold back a fluid being from mental development is asking for trouble. In anticipation of this, the creators of this chaotic system, thought to create a response to such a breakdown, and when society began to display such behaviors, they created mental illness diagnoses, so as to ensure that blame could be placed on the individual for their behavior. You cannot blame someone who might have developed into someone great, for the break down of their mental constitution; it's to be expected in such a system as we have. ~ Dara Reidyr

Until now, I've been writing about "now" as if it were literally an instant of time, but of course human faculties are not infinitely precise. It is simplistic to suppose that physical events and mental events march along exactly in step, with the stream of "actual moments" in the outside world and the stream of conscious awareness of them perfectly synchronized. The cinema industry depends on the phenomenon that what seems to us a movie is really a succession of still pictures, running at twenty-five [sic] frames per second. We don't notice the joins. Evidently the "now" of our conscious awareness stretches over at least 1/25 of a second.

In fact, psychologists are convinced it can last a lot longer than that. Take he familiar "tick-tock" of the clock. Well, the clock doesn't go "tick-tock" at all; it goes "tick-tick," every tick producing the same sound. It's just that our consciousness runs two successive ticks into a singe "tick-tock" experience - but only if the duration between ticks is less than about three seconds. A really bug pendulum clock just goes "tock . . . tock . . . tock," whereas a bedside clock chatters away: "ticktockticktock..." Two to three seconds seems to be the duration over which our minds integrate sense data into a unitary experience, a fact reflected in the structure of human music and poetry. ~ Paul Davies

It's about mental toughness. Mental toughness is everything. ~ Jon Gordon

There is no need to "believe" in Jupiter or Wotan - something that is no more ridiculous then believing in Yahweh however - to be pagan. Contemporary paganism does not consist of erecting altars to Apollo or reviving the worship of Odin. Instead it implies looking behind religion and, according to a now classic itinerary, seeking for the "mental equipment" that produced it, the inner world it reflects, and how the world it depicts as apprehended. In short, it consists of viewing the gods as "centers of value" and the beliefs they generate as value systems: gods and beliefs may pass away, but the values remain. ~ Alain De Benoist

Rather than suffering from any individual mental pathology, Goebbels held to a view of the world that he shared with much of the population. In the economic chaos after the humiliating Versailles treaty that concluded the First World War, there were millions like him in Germany. He welcomed the Nazi regime not only because it offered material benefits of various kinds but because it validated impulses that were curbed in the civilisation the Nazis set out to overthrow and destroy. The joy of a type of communal solidarity that was based on hatred of minorities; the pleasure of having these minorities in one's power and subjecting them to persecution; the delirious sense of release that comes from surrendering personal judgement and serving an autocratic leader – these were satisfactions that Nazism, at its peak, provided not only for Goebbels but for a majority of Germans. ~ John N. Gray

The first requisite for success is the ability to apply your physical and mental energies to one problem incessantly without growing weary. ~ Thomas A. Edison

I shook my head. "Um, the Bagmen are directing us. I think Sol is using them to help us."

Aric did a double take.

"Jaysus! The Empress has gone mental. As can happen when you're diddlin' Death. ~ Kresley Cole

I have often fought, fought & won, not perfection, but an acceptance of myself as having a right to live on my own human, fallible terms. ~ Sylvia Plath

It started with feelings of jealousy and like a mental virus it spread. ~ Dermot Davis

It's time for a change. You have to loosen up and live life. Better yet, enjoy life. ~ Charlena E. Jackson

Schopenhauer said only men had the total objectivity necessary for genius, and that you only had to look at a woman's shape to see that she wasn't intended for much mental or physical work. ~ Jacky Fleming

Most of the words we use in history and everyday speech are like mental depth charges. As they descend [through our consciousness] and detonate, their resonant power is unleashed, showering our understanding with fragments of accumulated meaning and association. ~ James Axtell

There is stability in self-destruction, in prolonging sadness as a means of escaping abstractions like happiness. Rock bottom is a surprisingly comfortable place to lay your head. Looking up from the depths of another low often seems a lot safer than wondering when you'll fall again. Falling feels awful.

I'd rather fucking fly. ~ Kris Kidd

You see, people in the depressive position are often stigmatised as 'failures' or 'losers'. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. If these people are in the depressive position, it is most probably because they have tried too hard or taken on too much, so hard and so much that they have made themselves 'ill with depression'. In other words, if these people are in the depressive position, it is because their world was simply not good enough for them. They wanted more, they wanted better, and they wanted different, not just for themselves, but for all those around them. So if they are failures or losers, this is only because they set the bar far too high. They could have swept everything under the carpet and pretended, as many people do, that all is for the best in the best of possible worlds. But unlike many people, they had the honesty and the strength to admit that something was amiss, that something was not quite right. So rather than being failures or losers, they are just the opposite: they are ambitious, they are truthful, and they are courageous. And that is precisely why they got 'ill'. To make them believe that they are suffering from some chemical imbalance in the brain and that their recovery depends solely or even mostly on popping pills is to do them a great disfavour: it is to deny them the precious opportunity not only to identify and address important life problems, but also to develop a deeper and more refined appreciation of themselves and of th ~ Neel Burton

This, she thought, isn't just for today. It's for everything. For the heartache that still felt like a punch in the gut each time it struck, fresh as new, at unpredictable moments; for the smiling lies and the mental images she couldn't shake; for the shame of having been so naive.
For the way loneliness is worse when you return to it after a reprieve - like the soul's version of putting on a wet bathing suit, clammy and miserable.
And this, Karou thought, no longer smiling, is for the irretrievable. ~ Laini Taylor

We're going to change. We're going to throw out what's worse in us
and keep what's best. But come hell or high water, we three will stick
together, all for one, one for all. We're going to grow, Cathy,
physically, mentally, and emotionally. Not only that, we're going to
reach the goals we've set for ourselves. I'll be the best damned
doctor the world's ever known and you will make Pavlova seem like an
awkward country girl. ~ V.C. Andrews

If your mental health is sound, then when disturbances come, you will have some distress but quickly recover. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

It was to Greece that the Romans first owed their knowledge of healing, and of art and science generally, but at no time did the Romans equal the Greeks in mental culture. ~ James Elliott

Mental Toughness: The ability to consistently perform toward the upper range of your talent and skill regardless of the competitive circumstances. ~ James E. Loehr

YOU DO NOT need to be a victim of worry. Reduced to its simplest form, what is worry? It is simply an unhealthy and destructive mental habit. ~ Norman Vincent Peale

Let us not can and store preconceived ideas in our minds. A freewheeling imagination can only function or reach its real height if it is liberated from canning "old thinking" and adopting imposed "packaged mental trips." ("Ready-to-wear thinking") ~ Erik Pevernagie

However, the struggle with that sentinel is, as a rule, not so hard as it may seem from a long way off, mainly in consequence of the antagonism between the ills of the body and the ills of the mind. If we are in great bodily pain, or the pain lasts a long time, we become indifferent to other troubles; all we think about is to get well. In the same way great mental suffering makes us insensible to bodily pain; we despise it; nay, if it should outweigh the other, it distracts our thoughts, and we welcome it as a pause in mental suffering. It is this feeling that makes suicide easy; for the bodily pain that accompanies it loses all significance in the eyes of one who is tortured by an excess of mental suffering. This is especially evident in the case of those who are driven to suicide by some purely morbid and exaggerated ill-humor. No special effort to overcome their feelings is necessary, nor do such people require to be worked up in order to take the step; but as soon as the keeper into whose charge they are given leaves them for a couple of minutes, they quickly bring their life to an end.
When, in some dreadful and ghastly dream, we reach the moment of greatest horror, it awakes us; thereby banishing all the hideous shapes that were born of the night. And life is a dream: when the moment of greatest horror compels us to break it off, the same thing happens. ~ Arthur Schopenhauer

Happiness doesn't depend on external condition or situation but it depends on mental condition. ~ Debasish Mridha

Every form of human conflict may be reduced to precisely the same pattern of mental events. We are all totalitarian despots over our own thoughts, bound to keep our minds in complete control. Control requires security. Security demands war. All war is the macrocosmic residue of neural synapses struggling to maintain their rhythm. ~ Bo Jinn

Jealousy ... is a mental cancer. ~ B.C. Forbes

Words bend our thinking to infinite paths of self-delusion, and the fact that we spend most of our mental lives in brain mansions built of words means that we lack the objectivity necessary to see the terrible distortion of reality which language brings. ~ Dan Simmons

When we choose to love, or to allow our minds to be one with God, then life is peaceful. When we turn away from love, the pain sets in. And whether we love, or close our hearts to love, is a mental choice we make, every moment of every day. ~ Marianne Williamson

Passive Aggression – Being covertly spiteful with the intent of inflicting mental pain. ~ Ashta-Deb

To the extent that self-expression does broadcast and reinforce a person's character, it clarifies a link between art, eccentricity, and mental illness. The more like ourselves we become, the odder we become. ~ Alice W. Flaherty

It isn't about how much physical weight you think you need to lose, it's about the mental weight that blocks you from loving yourself ~ Susan Hyatt

This disease comes with a package: shame. When any other part of your body gets sick, you get sympathy. ~ Ruby Wax

There are some truths, however, that we should never forget: Superstition has always been the relentless enemy of science; faith has been a hater of demonstration; hypocrisy has been sincere only in its dread of truth, and all religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. ~ Robert Green Ingersoll

When I speak in casual conversation, I try to start a mental clock in my head. I actually learned this from Marty Nemko, a San Francisco career coach. He told me, "For the first thirty seconds after you start talking, imagine a green light in your head. After thirty seconds the light turns yellow. At sixty seconds, it's red." That's a good piece of advice for most any conversational situation. It takes some mental energy to monitor myself, but it works. ~ John Elder Robison

I ask myself if there is an irresponsible aspect in relaying thoughts of pain as inspiration, and I wonder whether Housman actually infected the sensitives further, and pulled them back into additional darkness. Surely it is true that everything in the imagination seems worse than it actually is - especially when one is alone and horizontal (in bed, as in the coffin.) Housman was always alone - thinking himself to death, with no matronly wife to signal to the watching world that Alfred Edward was now quite alright - for isn't this at least partly the aim of scoring a partner: to trumpet the mental all-clear to a world where how things seem is far more important than how things are? Now snugly in eternity, Housman still occupies my mind. His best moments were in Art, and not in the cut and thrust of human relationships. Yet he said more about human relationships than those who managed to feast on them. You see, you can't have it both ways. ~ Morrissey

My stories are of gas chambers, shootings, electrified fences, torture, scorching sun, mental abuse, and constant threat of death. But they are also stories of faith, hope, triumph, and love. They are stories of perseverance, loyalty, courage in the face of overwhelming odds, and of never giving up! ~ Livia Bitton-Jackson

the only things that really matter in this world are the relationships you have with the people you love, and the meaningful things that you do. Haters don't fit anywhere into that. Don't devote any mental space to them. ~ James Altucher

whether or not you are already there, you will probably agree that a Stage Six default is worthy of your aspirations in just about any area of life. Life is a wonderful occasion. Rising to that occasion means becoming far bigger than your roles. That is the breakthrough to Stage Six. I also see this stage as the major part of a new and apt definition of positive mental health. Stage Six is the first of the two Target Stages. A Default Stage here breaks you out of the pack ~ Michael S. Broder