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.

I no longer count as one of my merits that I always tell the truth as much as possible; it has become my metier.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough to suppose that mankind will surmount this neurotic phase, just as so many children grow out of their similar neurosis.

Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.

Now it is nothing but torture.

Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love