The study of dreams may be considered the most trustworthy method of investigating deep mental processes. Now dreams occurring in traumatic neuroses have the characteristic of repeatedly bringing the patient back into the situation of his accident, a situation from which he wakes up in another fright.

A transference neurosis corresponds to a conflict between ego and id, a narcissistic neurosis corresponds to that between between ego and super-ego, and a psychosis to that between ego and outer world.

Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love.

Religion originates in the child's and young mankind's fears and need for help. It cannot be otherwise.

In the theory of psycho-analysis we have no hesitation in assuming that the course taken by mental events is automatically regulated by the pleasure principle. We believe, that is to say, that the course of those events is invariably set in motion by an unpleasurable tension, and that it takes a direction such that its final outcome coincides with a lowering of that tension that is, with an avoidance of unpleasure or a production of pleasure.

Smoking is indispensable if one has nothing to kiss.

We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast.