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

"He sido un hombre afortunado en la vida, nada me ha sido facil." "I've been a fortunate man in life, nothing has come easy"

A layman will no doubt find it hard to understand how pathological disorders of the body and mind can be eliminated by 'mere' words. He will feel that he is being asked to believe in magic. And he will not be so very wrong, for the words which we use in our everyday speech are nothing other than watered-down magic. But we shall have to follow a roundabout path in order to explain how science sets about restoring to words a part at least of their former magical power.

One... gets an impression that civilization is something which was imposed on a resisting majority by a minority which understood how to obtain possession of the means to power and coercion. It is, of course, natural to assume that these difficulties are not inherent in the nature of civilization itself but are determined by the imperfections of the cultural forms which have so far been developed.

The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions.

The primitive stages can always be re-established; the primitive mind is, in the fullest meaning of the word, imperishable.

Analysis does not set out to make pathological reactions impossible, but to give the patient's ego freedom to decide one way or another.