Words have a magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.

A lady once expressed herself in society - the very words show that they were uttered with fervour and under the pressure of a great many secret emotions: "Yes, a woman must be pretty if she is to please the men. A man is much better off. As long as he has five straight limbs, he needs no more!"

The state in which the ideas existed before being made conscious is called by us repression, and we assert that the force which instituted the repression and maintains it is perceived as resistance during the work of analysis.

In mourning it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself.

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

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization, though then, it is true, it had for the most part no value, since the individual was scarcely in a position to defend it. The development of civilization imposes restrictions on it, and justice demands that no one shall escape those restrictions.

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