I have never doubted that religious phenomena are only to be understood on the pattern of the individual neurotic symptoms familiar to us.

public self is a conditioned construct of the inner psychological self.

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 regard myself as one of the most dangerous enemies of religion

The facts which have caused us to believe in the dominance of the pleasure principle in mental life also find expression in the hypothesis that the mental apparatus endeavours to keep the quantity of excitation present in it as low as possible or at least to keep it constant.

I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.

A woman should soften but not weaken a man.