Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Karl Menninger (American Psychiatrist)

Karl Augustus Menninger (1893–1990) was an American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who devoted his life to advocating for mental health awareness and combating the stigma associated with mental illness. He also championed the rights of American Indians, nuclear nonproliferation, the welfare of neglected and abused children, and penal reform.

Born in Topeka, Kansas, Menninger belonged to the prominent Menninger family, known for their contributions to psychiatry. He received his education at Harvard University Medical School. In 1920, with his father, Charles Frederick Menninger (1862–1953,) he founded the Menninger Clinic, a pioneering institution for psychiatric research and therapy. His brother, William Claire Menninger (1899–66,) joined the clinic in 1926, and it quickly became one of the leading psychiatric centers in America.

In 1941, Menninger launched the Menninger Foundation to provide financial support for clinics and promote public education in psychiatry. The Menninger Clinic also provided refuge for European analysts fleeing Nazi oppression, including Otto Fenichel, Martin Grotjahn, and Ernst Simmel.

Menninger was a prolific writer, delving into various psychology and mental health aspects. His notable works include The Human Mind (1930,) a groundbreaking book that brought psychoanalytic concepts to the general public, and Man Against Himself (1938,) in which he analyzed the intricacies of self-destructive behavior. Love Against Hate (1992) examined humanity’s capacity to overcome self-destructiveness, while his magnum opus, The Vital Balance (1963,) surveyed the delicate equilibrium of mental health. In The Crime of Punishment (1968,) Menninger proposed that many convicted criminals required treatment rather than mere punishment within the penal system.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Karl Menninger

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward. When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.
—Karl Menninger

Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Purpose

What the teacher is, is more important than what he teaches.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Teachers

One does not fall in love; one grows into love, and love grows in him.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Love

Self-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 Menninger
Topics: Realization, Self-Esteem, Awareness, Acceptance, Self Respect

Fears are educated into us, and can, if we wish, be educated out.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Fear, Anxiety

Unrest of spirit is a mark of life.
—Karl Menninger

Attitudes are more important than facts.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Attitude

What is done to children, they will do to society.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Children

Love cures people—both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Give, People, Love

Love is a medicine for the sickness of the world; a prescription often given, too rarely taken.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Love

People 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 Menninger

It is doubtless true that religion has been the world’s psychiatrist throughout the centuries.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Religion

Hope is the major weapon against the suicide impulse.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Aspirations, Hope

The voice of intelligence … is drowned out by the roar of fear. It is ignored by the voice of desire. It is contradicted by the voice of shame. It is biased by hate and extinguished by anger. Most of all it is silenced by ignorance.
—Karl Menninger

It 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 Menninger
Topics: Optimism

Unrest of the spirit is a mark of life; one problem after another presents itself and in the solving of them we can find our greatest pleasure.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Problems

Mental health problems do not affect three or four out of every five persons, but one out of one.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Health

One of the most untruthful things possible, you know, is a collection of facts, because they can be made to appear so many different ways.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Facts

Hope is an adventure, a going forward—a confident search for a rewarding life.
—Karl Menninger
Topics: Hope

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