Sigmund Freud Quotes

The only unnatural sexual behavior is none at all.

A string of reproaches against other people leads one to suspect the existence of a string of self-reproaches with the same content.

As regards intellectual work it remains a fact, indeed, that great decisions in the realm of thought and momentous discoveries and solutions of problems are only possible to an individual, working in solitude.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief.

Let us consider the polarity of love and hate.... Now, clinical observation shows not only that love is with unexpected regularityaccompanied by hate (ambivalence), and not only that in human relationships hate is frequently a forerunner of love, but also that in many circumstances hate changes into love and love into hate.

When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.

But one thing about human beings puzzles me the most is their conscious effort to be connected with the object of their affection even if it kills them slowly within.

The first requisite of civilization, therefore, is that of justice — that is, the assurance that a law once made will not be broken in favour of an individual. This implies nothing as to the ethical value of such a law.

Plaque was placed on 6 May 1977 at Bellevue (a house on the slopes of the Wienerwald) where the Freud family spent their summers.

It is unreasonable to expect science to produce a system of ethics-ethics are a kind of highway code for traffic among mankind-and the fact that in physics atoms which were yesterday assumed to be square are now assumed to be round is exploited with unjustified tendentiousness by all who are hungry for faith; so long as physics extends our dominion over nature, these changes ought to be a matter of complete indifference to you.

Humanity is in the highest degree irrational, so that there is no prospect of influencing it by reasonable arguments. Against prejudice one can do nothing.

Religion originates in the child's and young mankind's fears and need for help. It cannot be otherwise.

The Irish are the one race for which psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever... because they already live in a dream world.

dream is the dreamer's own psychical act.

In the development of mankind as a whole, just as in individuals, love alone acts as the civilizing factor in the sense that it brings a change from egoism to altruism.

The voice of reason is small, but very persistent.

Love is a state of temporary psychosis.

In almost every place where we find totems we also find a law against persons of the same totem having sexual relations with one another and consequently against their marrying. This, then, is 'exogamy', an institution related to totemism.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously.

We must not allow ourselves to be deflected by the feminists who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth.

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

After all, we did not invent symbolism; it is a universal age-old activity of the human imagination.

The conscious mind may be compared to a fountain playing in the sun and falling back into the great subterranean pool of subconscious from which it rises.

We believe that civilization has been created under the pressure of the exigencies of life at the cost of satisfaction of the instincts.

What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.

"He sido un hombre afortunado en la vida, nada me ha sido facil." "I've been a fortunate man in life, nothing has come easy"

Intelligence will be used in the service of the neurosis.

It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggressiveness.

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as true or to believe in them.

My love is something valuable to me which I ought not to throw away without reflection.

In human beings pure masculinity or femininity is not to be found either in a psychological or biological sense.

The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.

Do you not know how uncontrolled and unreliable the average human being is in all that concerns sexual life?

The idea of life having a purpose stands and falls with the religious system.

Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.

Anxiety in children is originally nothing other than an expression of the fact they are feeling the loss of the person they love.

This transmissibility of taboo is a reflection of the tendency, on which we have already remarked, for the unconscious instinct in the neurosis to shift constantly along associative paths on to new objects.

These [religious ideas] are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fullfilments of the oldest, strongest and most urgent wishes of mankind.

The most ancient and important taboo prohibitions are the two basic laws of totemism: not to kill the totem animal and to avoid sexual intercourse with members of the totem clan of the opposite sex.

What psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena of neurotics can also be observed in the lives of some normal people. The impression they give is of being pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but psycho-analysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences.

The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

Christmas is the alcoholidays

An unrestricted satisfaction of every need presents itself as the most enticing method of conducting one's life, but it means putting enjoyment before caution, and soon brings its own punishment.

Where questions of religion are concerned, people are guilty of every possible sort of dishonesty and intellectual misdemeanor.