We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.

Whatever fosters the growth of civilization works at the same time against war.

There are no mistakes.

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

Indeed, the great Leonardo (da Vinci) remained like a child for the whole of his life in more than one way. It is said that all great men are bound to retain some infantile part. Even as an adult he continued to play, and this was another reason why he often appeared uncanny and incomprehensible to his contemporaries.

The price of civilization is instinctual renunciation.

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

Demons do not exist any more than gods do, being only the products of the psychic activity of man.

I think that in general it is a good plan occasionally to bear in mind the fact that people were in the habit of dreaming before there was such a thing as psychoanalysis.

The rest of our enquiry is made easy because this God-Creator is openly called Father. Psycho-analysis concludes that he really is the father, clothed in the grandeur in which he once appeared to the small child.

Love is the great educator.

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.

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

A transference neurosis corresponds to a conflict between ego and id, a narcissistic neurosis corresponds to that between between ego and super-ego, and a psychosis to that between ego and outer world.

Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating in us.

I should like to raise the question whether the inevitable stunting of the sense of smell as a result of man's turning away from the earth, and the organic repression of the smell-pleasure produced by it, does not largely share in his predisposition to nervous diseases.

Only a good-for-nothing is not interested in his past.

Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.

When the wayfarer whistles in the dark, he may be disavowing his timidity, but he does not see any the more clearly for doing so.

Civilization runs a greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than if we give it up.