I regard myself as one of the most dangerous enemies of religion

Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious.

The only shame in masturbation is the shame of not doing it well.

It is a mistake to believe that science consists in nothing but conclusively proved propositions, and it is unjust to demand that it should. It is a demand made by those who feel a craving for authority in some form to replace the religious catechism by something else, even a scientific one.

It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.

It must be pointed out, however, that strictly speaking it is incorrect to talk of the dominance of the pleasure principle over the course of mental processes. If such a dominance existed, the immense majority of our mental processes would have to be accompanied by pleasure or to lead to pleasure, whereas universal experience completely contradicts any such conclusion.