It is only when parental feelings are ineffective or too ambivalent or when the mother's emotions are temporarily engaged elsewhere that children feel lost.
Anna FreudHow one can live without being able to judge oneself, criticize what one has accomplished, and still enjoy what one does, is unimaginable to me.
Anna FreudPapa continually emphasizes how much remains unexplained. With the other psychoanalytic writers, everything is always so known and fixed.
Anna FreudWhy do we go around acting as though everything was friendship and reliability when basically everything everywhere is full of sudden hate and ugliness?
Anna FreudIn our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can't eat them.
Anna FreudCreate around one at least a small circle where matters are arranged as one wants them to be.
Anna FreudPapa always makes it clear that he would like to know me as much more rational and lucid than the girls and women he gets to know during his analytic hours.
Anna FreudEveryone here says in a surprised manner that I have grown... they are so stupid and do not notice that I am standing up straighter!
Anna FreudWhat I have always wanted for myself is much more primitive. It is probably nothing more than the affection of the people with whom I am in contact, and their good opinion of me.
Anna FreudThings are not as we would like them to be. There is only one way to deal with it, namely to try and be all right oneself.
Anna FreudThe selection of leadership must follow practical considerations. Maybe I look at things too pessimistically?
Anna FreudEverything becomes so problematic because of basic faults: from a discontent with myself.
Anna FreudWe live trapped, between the churned-up and examined past and a future that waits for our work.
Anna FreudI was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence but it comes from within. It is there all the time.
Anna FreudWe are imprisoned in the realm of life, like a sailor on his tiny boat, on an infinite ocean.
Anna Freud