The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.

It could be ventured to understand obsessive compulsive neurosis as the pathological counterpart of religious development, to define neurosis as an individual religiosity; to define religion as a universal obsessive compulsive neurosis.

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

Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead.

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.

Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.