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.

The Mosaic religion had been a Father religion; Christianity became a Son religion. The old God, the Father, took second place; Christ, the Son, stood in His stead, just as in those dark times every son had longed to do.

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?

You wanted to kill your father in order to be your father yourself. Now you are your father, but a dead father.

[The child] takes his play very seriously and he expends large amounts of emotion on it. The opposite of play is not what is serious but what is real.

The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy.

One must learn to give up momentary, uncertain and destructive pleasure for delayed, restrained, but dependable pleasure.