Anthony Storr Quotes

Man is a clever animal who behaves like an imbecile.

Human brutes, like other beasts, find snares and poison in the provision of life, and are allured by their appetites to their destruction.

If one looks with a cold eye at the mess man has made of history, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that he has been afflicted by some built-in mental disorder which drives him towards self-destruction.

The evil in the world is all of our own making, and it proceeds entirely from our ruthless, senseless, wasteful, destructive, and suicidal neglect of our own being.

Nothing [the demon] could think up was half as bad as the stuff [people] thought up themselves. They seemed to have a talent for it. It was built into their design somehow. They were born into a world that was against them in a thousand little ways, and then devoted most of their energies to making it worse.

As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all - the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for them.

The human race has improved everything, but the human race.

I'm definitely interested in exploring human contradictions. Contradictions are what make us human - it's what defines us as human beings. Contradictions are what make characters interesting, and I've been lucky to be presented with characters who have a lot of contradictions.

What I love about the Don Draper character is that he's so real and filled with all these contradictions.

With all the outlets, if you have a strong comedic voice, there's a venue to do your thing. It's a bit of a meritocracy, where the best stuff rises to the top.

Perfecting your craft is one of the main keys in being successful.

The problem with humans is that they are unable to handle their own intelligence.

The ambition and focus that propel you to success can also be your downfall.

There are more fools than wise men, and even in a wise man there is more folly than wisdom.

What I'm starting to really grapple with, as someone who likes to tell stories, is that humans more than any other animal species seem open and willing to control, assert dominance, and behave cruelly. That's a whole kind of new nightmare to really have to face about your own species. That we are, in some respects, cannibalistic, in that we are willing to destroy ourselves. That's really something for me to be exploring over the long haul.

Why, since we are always complaining of our ills, are we constantly employed in redoubling them?

The true horrors of human history derive not from orcs and Dark Lords, but from ourselves.

I think that human beings are the most awful monster we have ever seen.

We are double-edged blades, and every time we whet our virtue the return stroke straps our vice. Where is the skillful swordsman who can give clean wounds, and not rip up his work with the other edge?

What a pathetic creature is man! His senses are awakened by the hope for the very thing whose consummation puts him to sleep.

Humanity, perhaps, that quality of benevolence that humans have, without irony, named after themselves.

The circling horse was an oblique warning that i would repeat the same mistake eternally. Would the law of averages allow it? Can anything continue without change? Nothing else in nature behaves so consistently and rigidly as a human being in pursuit of hell.

Man is his own worst enemy.

Maybe that's all demons ever are. People like us, doing things without even knowing what we're doing.

I believe that all technological societies tend to self-destruct. The reason is that the very things that make us a successful technological society, such as our curiosity, our ambition and determination, will also cause us to fall.