We are what we are because we have been what we have been.

When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves

We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts.

A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist.

I no longer believe that William Shakespeare the actor from Stratford was the author of the works that have been ascribed to him.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

The gods retain their threefold task: they must exorcize the terrors of nature, they must reconcile men to the cruelty of Fate, particularly as it is shown in death, and they must compensate them for the sufferings and privations which a civilized life in common has imposed on them.