I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.

There are no mistakes.

We must reckon with the possibility that something in the nature of the sexual instinct itself is unfavorable to the realization of complete satisfaction.

Yes, America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake.

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

The pleasure principle long persists, however, as the method of working employed by the sexual instincts, which are so hard to 'educate', and, starting from those instincts, or in the ego itself, it often succeeds in overcoming the reality principle, to the detriment of the organism as a whole.

I became aware of my destiny: to belong to the critical minority as opposed to the unquestioning majority.