A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.

Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them, but does not invalidate our proposal that they should cease to be put forward as the reasons for the precepts of civilization. On the contrary! Those historical residues have helped us to view religious teachings, as it were, as neurotic relics, and we may now argue that the time has probably come, as it does in an analytic treatment, for replacing the effects of repression by the results of the rational operation of the intellect.

The wish to be able to fly is to be understood as nothing else than a longing to be capable of sexual performance.

A father's death is the most important event, the more heartbreaking and poignant loss in a man's life.

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever.

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization, though then, it is true, it had for the most part no value, since the individual was scarcely in a position to defend it. The development of civilization imposes restrictions on it, and justice demands that no one shall escape those restrictions.