Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

You wanted to kill your father in order to be your father yourself. Now you are your father, but a dead father.

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

Intolerance of groups is often, strangely enough, exhibited more strongly against small differences than against fundamental ones.

Humor is a means of obtaining pleasure in spite of the distressing effects that interface with it.

The poor ego has a still harder time of it; it has to serve three harsh masters, and it has to do its best to reconcile the claims and demands of all three...The three tyrants are the external world, the superego, and the id.

Much of our highly valued cultural heritage has been acquired at the cost of sexuality.