Robert Jay Lifton Quotes & Sayings (Page 2)

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“I struggled with each of these studies and I was uncertain about what they meant, and often confused, and then I tried to put together what I was seeing.”

“That is, we are bombarded by all kinds of images and influences and we have to fend some of them off if we're to take in any of them, or to carry through just our ordinary day's work, or really deepen whatever we have to do or say.”

“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.”