Erich Fromm
Psychologist, Philosopher
"The scars left from the child's defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis."
Neurosis quotes
Neurosis
96 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Sylvia Plath
Poet, Novelist
"If neurotic is wanting two mutually exclusive things at one and the same time, then I'm neurotic as hell."
Marcel Proust
Novelist
"The sensitiveness claimed by neurotic is matched by their egotism: they cannot abide the flaunting by others of the sufferings to which they pay an even increasing amount of attention in themselves."
Carl Jung
Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst
"The main interest of my work is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses but rather with the approach to the numinous. But the fact that the approach to the numinous is the real therapy, and inasmuch as you attain to the numinous experience you are released from the curse of pathology. Even the very disease takes on a numinous character."
Marie-Louise von Franz
Psychologist, Author
"Especially in times of collective neurosis, the existence of . . . mature people is of crucial importance."
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Topics related to Neurosis
Browse quotes that often appear alongside neurosis — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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Neurosis quotes (page 1 of 5)
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"Neurosis is the suffering of a soul which has not discovered its meaning."
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"A human being in a neurotic state might very well be compared to a bewitched person, for people caught in a neurosis are apt to behave in a manner uncongenial and destructive towards themselves as well as others."
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"Far more unwaveringly, the neurotic keeps before his eye his God, his idol, his ideal of personality and clings to his guiding principle, losing sight in the meanwhile of reality, whereas the normal person is always ready to dispense with this crutch, this aid, and reckon unhampered with reality."
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"Sexuality is the key to the problem of the psychoneuroses and of the neuroses in general. No one who disdains the key will ever be able to unlock the door."
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"Neurosis is an inner cleavage-the state of being at war with oneself."
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"Even in my first analysis of a depressive psychosis, I was immediately struck by its structural similarity with obsessional neurosis."
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"Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest."
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"if you force yourself to be the same as everyone else. It causes neuroses, psychoses, and paranoia. it's a distortion of nature, it goes against God's laws, for in all the world's woods and forests he did not create a single leaf the same as another."
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"A movie set is like a petri dish for neuroses, you know? It's just, like, egos and weird personalities and, more than anything, fear."
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"What I regretted in La Nausee was not to have put myself completely into the thing. I remained outside my hero's disease, protected by my neurosis which, through writing, gave me happiness."
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"Everything but happiness is neurosis."
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"I feel like schizoid is a precursor to schizophrenia or manic depression. I feel like I'm manic. I have parts of schizoid, parts of Asperger's. I'm a smorgasbord of neuroses."
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"A certain degree of neurosis is of inestimable value as a drive, especially to a psychologist."
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"As every man is hunted by his own daemon, vexed by his own disease, this checks all his activity."
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"Perhaps someday everyone will have neurosis."
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"Religion (is) a universal obsessional neurosis."
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"Intelligence will be used in the service of the neurosis."
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"The characteristic of every neurosis is to represent itself as natural."
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"Neurosis is the natural by-product of pain avoidance."
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"I love her too, but our neuroses just don't match."
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