The unconscious of one human being can react upon that of another without passing through the conscious.

Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being only the products of the psychic activity of man.

The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously.

Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature.

In general people experience their present naively, as it were, without being able to form an estimate of its contents; they have first to put themselves at a distance from it - the present, that is to say, must have become the past - before it can yield points of vantage from which to judge the future.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.

The genitals themselves have not undergone the development of the rest of the human form in the direction of beauty.