773 Quotes by Sigmund Freud

Experience teaches that for most people there is a limit beyond which their constitution cannot comply with the demands of civilization. All who wish to reach a higher standard than their constitution will allow, fall victims to neurosis. It would have been better for them if they could have remained less "perfect".

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

A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.

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

I cannot face the idea of life without work. What would one do when ideas failed or words refused to come? It is impossible not to shudder at the thought.

Talk therapy turns hysterical misery to mundane unhappiness.

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

Hatred of Judaism is at bottom hatred of Christianity.

The true believer is in a high degree protected against the danger of certain neurotic afflictions; by accepting the universal neurosis he is spared the task of forming a personal neurosis.