But the less a man knows about the past and the present the more insecure must prove to be his judgment of the future.

The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life.

Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.

Men are strong so long as they represent a strong idea they become powerless when they oppose it.

I think that in general it is a good plan occasionally to bear in mind the fact that people were in the habit of dreaming before there was such a thing as psychoanalysis.

After all, we did not invent symbolism; it is a universal age-old activity of the human imagination.

In almost every place where we find totems we also find a law against persons of the same totem having sexual relations with one another and consequently against their marrying. This, then, is 'exogamy', an institution related to totemism.