145 Quotes by Wilhelm Reich

And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express

It is said culture requires slaves. I say that no cultured society can be built with slaves. This terrible Twentieth Century has made all cultural theories from Plato down seem ridiculous. Little man, there has never been a human culture.

'Mysticism' here means, in the literal sense, a change of sensory impressions and organ sensations into something unreal and beyond this world.

Politically, we are still stuck in the systems of thought of the Greek and Roman slave states, no matter how much we rant about "democracy.

I observe to the letter all laws that make sense but combat those that are obsolete or absurd.

This idealization of motherhood is essentially a means of keeping women from developing a sexual consciousness and from breaking through the barriers of sexual repression, of keeping alive their sexual anxieties and guilt feelings. The very existence of woman as a sexual being would threaten authoritarian ideology; her recognition and social affirmation would mean its collapse.

One cannot equate "capitalism" and "democracy.

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.

It is of the essence of any party to gain its orientation not from truths but from illusions which usually correspond to the irrational mass structure. Scientific truths only interfered with the habit of the party politicians of avoiding difficulties with the aid of illusions.