No other technique for the conduct of life attaches the individual so firmly to reality as laying emphasis on work; for his work at least gives him a secure place in a portion of reality, in the human community.

My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

So in every individual the two trends, one towards personal happiness and the other unity with the rest of humanity, must contend with each other.

The division of the psychical into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise of psycho-analysis; and it alone makes it possible for psycho-analysis to understand the pathological processes in mental life, which are as common as they are important, and to find a place for them in the framework of science.

The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions.

What decides the purpose of life is simply the programme of the pleasure principle. This principle dominates the operation of the mental apparatus from the start. There can be no doubt about its efficacy, and yet its programme is at loggerheads with the whole world, with the macrocosm as much as with the microcosm.