Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.

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

Let us consider the polarity of love and hate.... Now, clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularityaccompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in many circumstances hate changes into love and love into hate.

What is a totem? It is as a rule an animal (whether edible and harmless or dangerous and feared) and more rarely a plant or a natural phenomenon (such as rain or water), which stands in a peculiar relation to the whole clan. In the first place, the totem is the common ancestor of the clan; at the same time it is their guardian spirit and helper, which sends them oracles and, if dangerous to others, recognizes and spares its own children.

All family life is organized around the most damaged person in it.

Civilized people have exchanged some part of their chances of happiness for a measure of security.