Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.

Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another.

Even if all parts of a problem seem to fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, one has to remember that the probable need not necessarily be the truth and the truth not always probable.

In almost every place where we find totems we also find a law against persons of the same totem having sexual relations with one another and consequently against their marrying. This, then, is 'exogamy', an institution related to totemism.

History is just new people making old mistakes.

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

Not to know the past is to be in bondage to it, while to remember, to know, is to be set free.