Religion belonged to the infancy of humanity. Now that humanity had come of age, it should be left behind.

This transmissibility of taboo is a reflection of the tendency, on which we have already remarked, for the unconscious instinct in the neurosis to shift constantly along associative paths on to new objects.

Psychiatry is the art of teaching people how to stand on their own feet while reclining on couches.

I consider it a good rule for letter-writing to leave unmentioned what the recipient already knows, and instead tell him something new.

The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward with a claim...to save mankind from this sense of guilt, which they call sin.

Another technique for fending off suffering is the employment of the displacements of libido which our mental apparatus permits of and through which its function gains so much in flexibility. The task here is that of shifting the instinctual aims in such a way that they cannot come up against frustration from the external world.

The inclination to aggression constitutes the greatest impediment to civilization.