Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities... If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man's evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

I do not doubt that it would be easier for fate to take away your suffering than it would for me. But you will see for yourself that much has been gained if we succeed in turning your hysterical misery into common unhappiness.

Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love.

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

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.

We are what we are because we have been what we have been.

Our fascination with gold is related to the fantasies of early childhood.