# Quote — Alice Miller, Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence

> I cannot conceive of a society in which children are not mistreated, but respected and lovingly cared for, that would develop an ideology of forgiveness for incomprehensible cruelties. This ideology is indivisible with the command "Thou shalt not be aware" [of the cruelty your parents inflicted to you] and with the repetition of that cruelty on the next generation.

- Author: [Alice Miller](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller.md)
- Book: [Breaking Down The Wall Of Silence](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alice_Miller_(psychologist)#Breaking_Down_the_Wall_of_Silence_(1991)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/i-cannot-conceive

## More from this book

> Hard as it is to believe, in the entire world there is not a single faculty in which a degree is offered in the study of psychic injuries in childhood.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/hard-as-it.md)

> Parents are indeed capable of routinely torturing their children without anyone interceding.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/parents-are-indeed.md)

> Psychoanalysis does not distort the truth by accident. It does so by necessity. It is an effective system for the suppression of the truth about childhood, a truth feared by our entire society. Not surprisingly, it enjoys great esteem among intellectuals... Fear of the truth about child abuse is a leitmotif of nearly all forms of therapy known to me.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/alice-miller/breaking-down-the-wall-of-silence/psychoanalysis-does-not.md)