Generous people are rarely mentally ill people.

— Karl Menninger

It is this intangible thing love in many forms which enters into every therapeutic relationship. . . . And it is an element which binds and heals which comforts and restores which works what we have to call - for now - miracles.

— Karl Menninger

Listening is a magnetic and strange thing a creative force. The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward and we want to sit in their radius. When we are listened to it creates us makes us unfold and expand.

— Karl Menninger

Neurotic means he is not as sensible as I am and psychotic means he's even worse than my brother-in-law.

— Karl Menninger

The adjuration to be "normal" seems shockingly repellent to me; I see neither hope nor comfort in sinking to that low level. I think it is ignorance that makes people think of abnormality only with horror and allows them to remain undismayed at the proximity of "normal" to average and mediocre. For surely anyone who achieves anything is, a priori, abnormal.

— Karl Menninger

The very word, “sin,” which seems to have disappeared, was once a proud word. It was once a strong word, an ominous and serious word. … But the word went away. It has almost disappeared — the word, along with the notion. Why? Doesn’t anyone sin anymore? Doesn’t anyone believe in sin?

— Karl Menninger

What's done to children they will do to society.

— Karl Menninger