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I was about to tell him he was wrong to dwell on it, because it really didn't matter. But he cut me off and urged me one last time, drawing himself up to his full height and asking me if I believed in God. I said no. He sat down indignantly. He said it was impossible; all men believed in God, even those who turn their backs on him. That was his belief, and if he were ever to doubt it, his life would become meaningless. 'Do you want my life to be meaningless?' he shouted. As far as I could see, it didn't have anything to do with me, and I told him so. But from across the table he had already thrust the crucifix in my face and was screaming irrationally, 'I am a Christian. I ask Him to forgive you for sins. How can you not believe that He suffered for you?' I was struck by how sincere he seemed, but I had had enough. It was getting hotter and hotter. As always, whenever I want to get rid of someone I'm not really listening to, I made it appear as if I agreed. To my surprise, he acted triumphant. 'You see, you see!' he said. 'You do believe, don't you, and you're going to place your trust in Him, aren't you?' Obviously, I again said no. He fell back in his chair.

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Jul 27, 2025

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The tendency of aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man ... it constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture.
Sigmund Freud

Quote Author: Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud

Sigmund Freud (IPA: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939), was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who founded the psychoanalytic school of psychology. Freud is best known for his theories of the unconscious mind and the defense mechanism of repression. He is also renowned for his redefinition of sexual desire as the primary motivational energy of human life which is directed toward a wide variety of objects; as well as his therapeutic techniques, including his theory of transference in the therapeutic relationship and the presumed value of dreams as sources of insight into unconscious desires.

Freud is commonly referred to as "the father of psychoanalysis" and his work has been highly influential — popularizing such notions as the unconscious, the Oedipus complex, defense mechanisms, Freudian slips and dream symbolism — while also making a long-lasting impact on fields as diverse as literature, film, Marxist and feminist theories, and psychology. However, his body of work is disputed by numerous critics, such as author Richard Webster, who characterizes Freud's work as a "complex pseudo-science," and A. C. Grayling who noted, " ...as to Freud's claims upon truth, the judgment of time seems to be running against him."

Other Sigmund Freud Quotes

The might of the community. Yet, it too, is nothing else than violence… it is the communal, not individual, violence that has its way.

The tendency of aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man… it constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture.

The very emphasis of the commandment: Thou shalt not kill, makes it certain that we are descended from an endlessly long chain of generations of murderers, whose love of murder was in their blood as it is perhaps also in ours.

Analogies, it is true, decide nothing, but they can make one feel more at home.

Anatomy is destiny.

The great majority of people have a strong need for authority which they can admire, to which they can submit, and which dominates and sometimes even ill-treats them.

Devout believers are safeguarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of constructing a personal one.

Neither in my private life nor in my writings, have I ever made a secret of being an out-and-out unbeliever.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

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

When making a decision of minor importance, I have always found it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons. In vital matters, however, such as the choice of a mate or a profession, the decision should come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves. In the important decisions of personal life, we should be governed, I think, by the deep inner needs of our nature.

Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviours by other, secular motives, would proceed unobtrusively....

The ego is not master in its own house.

Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts.

What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.

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

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be 'happy' is not included in the plan of Creation.' ... We are so made that we can derive intense enjoyment only from a contrast and very little from a state of things.

Being entirely honest with oneself is a good exercise.

Where id was, there shall ego be.

A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes, but to get into accord with them; they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.

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

The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief.

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

The goal of all life is death.

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love, never so forlornly unhappy as when we have lost our love object or its love.

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. Letter (9 October 1918)

Neurosis seems to be a human privilege.

The expectation that every neurotic phenomenon can be cured may, I suspect, be derived from the layman's belief that the neuroses are something quite unnecessary which have no right whatever to exist. Whereas in fact they are severe, constitutionally fixed illnesses, which rarely restrict themselves to only a few attacks but persist as a rule over long periods throughout life.

Every normal person, in fact, is only normal on the average. His ego approximates to that of the psychotic in some part or other and to a greater or lesser extent.

Opposition is not necessarily enmity; it is merely misused and made an occasion for enmity.

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

It would be one of the greatest triumphs of humanity, one of the most tangible liberations from the constraints of nature to which mankind is subject, if we could succeed in raising the responsible act of procreating children to the level of a deliberate and intentional activity and in freeing it from its entanglement with the necessary satisfaction of a natural need.

It might be said of psychoanalysis that if you give it your little finger, it will soon have your whole hand.

When a man has once brought himself to accept uncritically all the absurdities that religious doctrines put before him and even to overlook the contradictions between them, we need not be greatly suprised at the weakness of his intellect.

Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against the crushing supremacy of nature.

Obviously one must hold oneself responsible for the evil impulses of one's dreams. In what other way can one deal with them? Unless the content of the dream rightly understood is inspired by alien spirits, it is part of my own being.

No, our science is no illusion. But an illusion it would be to suppose that what science cannot give us we can get elsewhere.

Look into the depths of your own soul and learn first to know yourself, then you will understand why this illness was bound to come upon you and perhaps you will thenceforth avoid falling ill.

It is always possible to bind together a considerable number of people in love, so long as there are other people left over to receive the manifestations of their aggression.

We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful than any other.

The mind is an iceberg — it floats with only one-seventh of its bulk above water.

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.

Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.

What do women want, my God, what do they want? What does a woman want.

The great question that has never been answered and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'

The tendency of aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man ... it constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture.

The time comes when each one of us has to give up as illusions the expectations which, in his youth, he pinned upon his fellow-men, and when he may learn how much difficulty and pain has been added to his life by their ill-will.

Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from its readiness to fit in with our instinctual wishful impulses.

From error to error one discovers the entire truth.

What a distressing contrast there is between the radiant intelligence of the child and the feeble mentality of the average adult.

Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations.

Men are strong only so long as they represent a strong idea. They become powerless when they oppose it.

Thought is action in rehearsal.

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