The goal towards which the pleasure principle impels us - of becoming happy - is not attainable: yet we may not - nay, cannot - give up the efforts to come nearer to realization of it by some means or other.

A man's heterosexuality will not put up with any homosexuality, and vice versa.

It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built upon a renunciation of instinct.

One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.

Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviors by other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively. . . .

A love that does not discriminate seems to me to forfeit a part of its own value, by doing an injustice to its object; and secondly, not all men are worthy of love.

America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.