Quotes from Sigmund Freud

The ego is not master in its own house.

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.

Incidentally, why was it that none of all the pious ever discovered psycho-analysis? Why did it have to wait for a completely godless Jew?

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

We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love.

If it's not one thing, it's your mother.

If a man has been his mother's undisputed darling he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success along with it.

A man who has been the indisputable favorite of his mother keeps for life the feeling of a conqueror.

The sexual wishes in regard to the mother become more intense and the father is perceived as an obstacle to the; this gives rise to the Oedipus complex.

The most complicated achievements of thought are possible without the assistance of consciousness.

In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed by the deep inner needs of our nature.

The dream is the liberation of the spirit from the pressure of external nature, a detachment of the soul from the fetters of matter.

One becomes gradually accustomed to a new realization of the nature of 'happiness': one has to assume happiness when Fate does not carry out all its threats simultaneously.

We must reckon with the possibility that something in the nature of the sexual instinct itself is unfavorable to the realization of complete satisfaction.

Our unconscious, then, does not believe in its own death; it behaves as if it were immortal. It knows nothing that is negative; in it contradictories coincide. This may be the secret of heroism.

Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.

Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?

Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.

When we share - that is poetry in the prose of life.

Every man is a poet at heart.

When inspiration does not come to me, I go halfway to meet it.

Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us O'er the world's tempestuous sea; Guard us, guide us, keep us, feed us, For we have no help but Thee.

The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.

Civilized people have exchanged some part of their chances of happiness for a measure of security.