You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.
Wilhelm ReichAnd the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express
Wilhelm ReichThe question of how and why the encrustations and rigidifications of human emotional life are brought about led directly into the realm of vegetative life.
Wilhelm ReichIn brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. . . The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and sexual anxiety.
Wilhelm ReichRooting in work is crucial to any accomplishment. Rooting in mere enthusiasm will in the long run force illusory measures to keep the fires of empty enthusiasm going. And this makes politics and politicians.
Wilhelm ReichHow, then,' I hear you ask, 'shall I attain my end, whether it be Christian love, socialism, or American democracy?' Your Christian love and your socialism and your American democracy are what you do each day, your manner of thinking each hour, of embracing your life companion and loving your child; they are your attitude of social responsibility towards your work, and your determination not to become like the crushers of life you so hate.
Wilhelm Reich