Sigmund Freud Quotes

Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to talking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young.

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

Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways.

America is the most grandiose experiment the world has seen, but, I am afraid, it is not going to be a success.

Words have a magical power. They can either bring the greatest happiness or the deepest despair.

Sadism is all right in its place, but it should be directed to proper ends.

Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

We are what we are because we have been what we have been.

The act of birth is the first experience of anxiety, and thus the source and prototype of the affect of anxiety.

If you can’t do it, give up!

I have found little that is ‘good’ about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual.

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.