Top 25 Robert Jay Lifton Quotes (2024 Update)

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved.”

1. “In sum, doubling is the psychological means by which one invokes the evil potential of the self. That evil is neither inherent in the self nor foreign to it. To live out the doubling and call forth the evil is a moral choice for which one is responsible, whatever the level of consciousness involved.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life.”

2. “And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “Sometimes its said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category.”

3. “Sometimes its said that psychiatrists are doctors who are frightened by the sight of blood. I might have fallen into that category.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother’s parents were very steeped in.”

4. “Again, I was influenced by my father, who was very much an atheist and took pride in combating the traditional or orthodox forms of Judaism, which his parents and which my mother’s parents were very steeped in.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “Every adult in the world has some sense that he or she might be obliterated at any time by these weapons that we have created.”

5. “Every adult in the world has some sense that he or she might be obliterated at any time by these weapons that we have created.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “David Frankfurter’s valuable, well-written study takes us to the far reaches of demonology. In documenting the harm done by labeling others evil, he poses a challenge to those of us who believe, however regretfully, in the necessity of the concept.”

6. “David Frankfurter’s valuable, well-written study takes us to the far reaches of demonology. In documenting the harm done by labeling others evil, he poses a challenge to those of us who believe, however regretfully, in the necessity of the concept.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “One reason that I embarked on a study of Nazi doctors was that in this personal journey, I had the feeling increasingly that I did want to do a Holocaust study and that increasingly I wanted it to be of perpetrators, which I thought was more needed.”

7. “One reason that I embarked on a study of Nazi doctors was that in this personal journey, I had the feeling increasingly that I did want to do a Holocaust study and that increasingly I wanted it to be of perpetrators, which I thought was more needed.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “The one-sided exploitation of existential guilt is thought reform’s trump card, and perhaps its most important source of emotional influence over its participants. Revolving around it are issues most decisive to thought reform’s outcome.”

8. “The one-sided exploitation of existential guilt is thought reform’s trump card, and perhaps its most important source of emotional influence over its participants. Revolving around it are issues most decisive to thought reform’s outcome.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.”

9. “I learned a lot from Vietnam veterans, especially as some of them turned against their own war.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “I’m a Brooklyn boy. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there, and spent most of my childhood there.”

10. “I’m a Brooklyn boy. I was born in Brooklyn, New York, and raised there, and spent most of my childhood there.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “The other thing that happened was my last military assignment – this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.”

11. “The other thing that happened was my last military assignment – this was in the air force; I had enlisted in order to avoid being drafted as a private, and of course I only practiced medicine or psychiatry in the air force so I was never in any kind of violent combat.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “When I was still in my psychiatric residency training in New York City, I was subjected to the doctor draft of that time, during the early fifties, at the time of the Korean War.”

12. “When I was still in my psychiatric residency training in New York City, I was subjected to the doctor draft of that time, during the early fifties, at the time of the Korean War.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “I never quite envisioned myself a proper doctor under that white coat, but I was interested in the idea of healing and in the psychological dimension rather early on.”

13. “I never quite envisioned myself a proper doctor under that white coat, but I was interested in the idea of healing and in the psychological dimension rather early on.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “As a kid I was fascinated with sports, and I loved sports more than anything else. The first books I read were about sports, like books about Baseball Joe, as one baseball hero was called.”

14. “As a kid I was fascinated with sports, and I loved sports more than anything else. The first books I read were about sports, like books about Baseball Joe, as one baseball hero was called.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “But I spent just two calendar years at Cornell University, though it was covering more than three years of work, and then went to medical school and did become interested in psychiatry, and even helped form a kind of psychiatry club in medical school.”

15. “But I spent just two calendar years at Cornell University, though it was covering more than three years of work, and then went to medical school and did become interested in psychiatry, and even helped form a kind of psychiatry club in medical school.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “Yes, I’ve been very preoccupied with the survivor all through my work.”

16. “Yes, I’ve been very preoccupied with the survivor all through my work.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.”

17. “And I managed to arrange to get some research support and to stay in Hong Kong for another year and a half, interviewing people coming out of China, both Westerners and Chinese. And that was my first real research study on thought reform or so-called brainwashing.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “I did the first study because I had been exposed to something that I took to be important and interesting – this thought reform process – in the military.”

18. “I did the first study because I had been exposed to something that I took to be important and interesting – this thought reform process – in the military.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “I don’t have the feeling that as a very young person I read books that absolutely made their mark on my mind.”

19. “I don’t have the feeling that as a very young person I read books that absolutely made their mark on my mind.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “But when I went to Hiroshima and began to study or just listen to people’s descriptions of their work, it was quite clear they were talking about death all the time, about people dying all around them, about their own fear of death.”

20. “But when I went to Hiroshima and began to study or just listen to people’s descriptions of their work, it was quite clear they were talking about death all the time, about people dying all around them, about their own fear of death.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “And I was troubled by the heavy-handed prose of so much psychoanalytic writing, which seemed drowned in its own concepts.”

21. “And I was troubled by the heavy-handed prose of so much psychoanalytic writing, which seemed drowned in its own concepts.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “When we consider further the social and psychological roots of the collective urge to kill the world, we are likely to see more of ourselves in it and to begin to think of such groups as something of a dark “cultural underground” of our own society. We are also likely to discover that whatever renders our society more decent and more inclusive in its benefits is likely to undermine the totalistic impulse to destroy everything.”

22. “When we consider further the social and psychological roots of the collective urge to kill the world, we are likely to see more of ourselves in it and to begin to think of such groups as something of a dark “cultural underground” of our own society. We are also likely to discover that whatever renders our society more decent and more inclusive in its benefits is likely to undermine the totalistic impulse to destroy everything.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “Psychologically, nothing is darker or more menacing, or harder to accept, than the participation of physicians in mass murder. However technicized or commercial the modern physician may have become, he or she is still supposed to be a healer – and one responsible to a tradition of healing, which all cultures revere and depend upon.”

23. “Psychologically, nothing is darker or more menacing, or harder to accept, than the participation of physicians in mass murder. However technicized or commercial the modern physician may have become, he or she is still supposed to be a healer – and one responsible to a tradition of healing, which all cultures revere and depend upon.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “The ditties blend Japanese popular culture themes of saccharine, childlike goodness and viciously detached sadism, which Aum drew upon as it tapped the barely suppressed rage of the young against their society.”

24. “The ditties blend Japanese popular culture themes of saccharine, childlike goodness and viciously detached sadism, which Aum drew upon as it tapped the barely suppressed rage of the young against their society.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “It may sound terrible, but I often say that the military saved me from a conventional life in the United States and I’ve never really thanked them for it, because I haven’t exactly been pro-military in my work.”

25. “It may sound terrible, but I often say that the military saved me from a conventional life in the United States and I’ve never really thanked them for it, because I haven’t exactly been pro-military in my work.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “The incident does not mean that most Japanese were not appalled by Aum. It does suggest that many young adults viewed their society as so corrupt and hypocritical that any degree of mockery, if not violence against it, was justified.”

26. “The incident does not mean that most Japanese were not appalled by Aum. It does suggest that many young adults viewed their society as so corrupt and hypocritical that any degree of mockery, if not violence against it, was justified.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

Robert Jay Lifton Quote: “They may come to feel that only the world’s death can enable them to overcome their own inner deadness.”

27. “They may come to feel that only the world’s death can enable them to overcome their own inner deadness.”

— Robert Jay Lifton

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