Sane Humors

     A large part of the art of therapy is in the tact and lucidity with which the analyst points out the ways in which collusion maintains illusions or disguises delusions. The dominant phantasy in a group may be that the therapist has 'the answer', and that if they had 'the answer', they would not suffer. The therapist's task is then like the Zen Master's, to point out that suffering is not due to not getting 'the answer', but is the very state of desire that assumes the existence of that kind of answer, and the frustration of never getting it. As Burtt (1955) says of the teachings of Hsi Yun, the Zen Master of about A.D. 840, his intention was to make the questioner aware 'that the real difficulty is not so much in his questions being unanswerable as in his continuing in the state of mind that leads him to ask them' (p. 195). Illusionment or disillusionment may equally be based on the same phantasy. There is 'an answer' somewhere; or there is 'no answer' anywhere. The same issue either way.
     Therapy without collusion cannot help but frustrate desires generated by phantasy.
— R. D. Laing, Self and Others, pp. 105-106.

A man should not be without morals; it is better to have bad morals than none at all.
— Mark Twain, Mark Twain's Notebook, Albert B. Paine (ed.), p. 237.

If you tell the truth you don't have to remember anything.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 240.

It takes me a long time to lose my temper, but once lost I could not find it with a dog.
— Mark Twain, Ibid.

To ask a doctor's opinion of osteopathy is equivalent to going to Satan for information about Christianity.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 343.

You can't depend on your judgment when your imagination is out of focus.
     The proper office of a friend is to side with you when you are in the wrong. Nearly anybody will side with you when you are in the right.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 345.

     Good breeding consists in concealing how much we think of ourselves and how little we think of the other person.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 346.

     When we remember that we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 347.

     Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain't so.
— Mark Twain, Ibid.

     Temperate temperance is best. Intemperate temperance injures the cause of temperance, while temperate temperance helps it in its fight against intemperate temperance.
     Fanatics will never learn that, though it be written in letters of gold across the sky.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 310.

     Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
— Mark Twain, Ibid., p. 312.