...perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions are not, like religious ones, incapable of correction.

Adolescent stage in the development of the human race from which humanity should free itself.

The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy.

The only person with whom you have to compare ourselves, is that you in the past. And the only per-son better you should be, this is who you are now.

Innately, children seem to have little true realistic anxiety. They will run along the brink of water, climb on the window sill, play with sharp objects and with fire, in short, do everything that is bound to damage them and to worry those in charge of them, that is wholly the result of education; for they cannot be allowed to make the instructive experiences themselves.

What we call happiness in the strictest sense comes from the (preferably sudden) satisfaction of needs which have been dammed up to a high degree.

Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people's behavior, it would all make sense.