I have never doubted that religious phenomena are only to be understood on the pattern of the individual neurotic symptoms familiar to us.
Sigmund FreudA religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong to it.
Sigmund FreudThe functional importance of the ego is manifested in the fact that normally control over the approaches to motility devolves upon it. Thus in its relation to the id it is like a man on horse back, who has to hold in check the superior strength of the horse; with this difference, that the rider tries to do so with his own strength while the ego uses borrowed forces.
Sigmund Freud