Sigmund Freud
Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
Where id was, there ego shall be.
The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.
The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.
A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist.
Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.
Sadism is all right in its place, but it should be directed to proper ends.
Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.
It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.
Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young.
A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.
Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.
What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.
One is very crazy when in love.
Incidentally, why was it that none of all the pious ever discovered psycho-analysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?
The psychoanalysis of neurotics has taught us to recognize the intimate connection between wetting the bed and the character trait of ambition.
Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea they become powerless when they oppose it.
Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.
One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.Collection: Inspirational
Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.Collection: Inspirational
In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.Collection: Inspirational
We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exists in our subconscious.Collection: Subconscious
Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength.Collection: Inspirational
We are what we are because we have been what we have been.Collection: Has Beens
Words have a magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.Collection: Despair
All family life is organized around the most damaged person in it.Collection: Family
Human beings are funny. They long to be with the person they love but refuse to admit openly. Some are afraid to show even the slightest sign of affection because of fear. Fear that their feelings may not be recognized, or even worst, returned. But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within.Collection: Long
Love is a state of temporary psychosis.Collection: Love Is
Maturity is the ability to postpone gratification.Collection: Maturity
I have found little 'good' about human beings. In my experience, most of them are trash.Collection: Littles
Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.Collection: Knowledge
History is just new people making old mistakes.Collection: Mistake
The only shame in masturbation is the shame of not doing it well.Collection: Shame
From error to error one discovers the entire truth.Collection: Truth
Not to know the past is to be in bondage to it, while to remember, to know, is to be set free.Collection: Past
The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy.Collection: Crazy
The only person with whom you have to compare ourselves, is that you in the past. And the only per-son better you should be, this is who you are now.Collection: Son
Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a state of blissful hallucinatory confusion. Religion's eleventh commandment is "Thou shalt not question."Collection: Reality
I became aware of my destiny: to belong to the critical minority as opposed to the unquestioning majority.Collection: Destiny
Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.Collection: Teacher
Dreams are the royal road to the unconscious.Collection: Dream
Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating within us.Collection: Rejection
The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them.Collection: Fate
Only the real, rare, true scientific minds can endure doubt, which is attached to all our knowledge.Collection: Real
One might compare the relation of the ego to the id with that between a rider and his horse. The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it. But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it itself wants to go.Collection: Horse
Long ago man formed an ideal conception of omnipotence and omniscience which he embodied in his gods. Whatever seemed unattainable to his desires - or forbidden to him - he attributed to these gods... Now he has himself approached very near to realizing this ideal, he has nearly become a god himself.Collection: Men
The voice of the intellect is soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing. Ultimately, after endless rebuffs, it succeeds. This is one of the few points in which one may be optimistic about the future of mankind.Collection: Optimistic
A poor girl may have an illusion that a prince will come and fetch her home. It is possible, some such cases have occurred. That the Messiah will come and found a golden age is much less probable.Collection: Girl
It might be said of psychoanalysis that if you give it your little finger it will soon have your whole hand.Collection: Hands