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.

I became aware of my destiny: to belong to the critical minority as opposed to the unquestioning majority.

In this way the ego detaches itself from the external world. It is more correct to say: Originally the ego includes everything, later it detaches from itself the external world. The ego-feeling we are aware of now is thus only a shrunken vestige of a far more extensive feeling - a feeling which embraced the universe and expressed an inseparable connection of the ego with the external world.

The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.

[The child receives impressions like] a photographic exposure that can be developed after any interval of time and transformed into a picture.

Thus we arrive at the singular conclusion that of all the information passed by our cultural assets it is precisely the elements which might be of the greatest importance to us and which have the task of solving the riddles of the universe and of reconciling us to the sufferings of life -- it is precisely those elements that are the least well authenticated of any.

Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.