In this way the ego detaches itself from the external world. It is more correct to say: Originally the ego includes everything, later it detaches from itself the external world. The ego-feeling we are aware of now is thus only a shrunken vestige of a far more extensive feeling - a feeling which embraced the universe and expressed an inseparable connection of the ego with the external world.

We should picture the instrument that carries our mental functioning as resembling a compound microscope or photographic apparatus.

Talk therapy turns hysterical misery to mundane unhappiness.

The ego refuses to be distressed by the provocations of reality, to let itself be compelled to suffer. It insists that it cannot be affected by the traumas of the external world; it shows, in fact, that such traumas are no more than occasions for it to gain pleasure.

The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter.

A man's heterosexuality will not put up with any homosexuality, and vice versa.

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.