Quote collection
464 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
"Flowers are restful to look at. They have neither emotions nor conflicts."
"We are never so defensless against suffering as when we love."
"Perception is less of a recording system and more of a protection system against external stimuli."
"Knowledge is the intellectual manipulation of carefully verified observations."
"The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief."
"Perhaps the gods are kind to us, by making life more disagreeable as we grow older. In the end death seems less intolerable than the manifold burdens we carry"
"Talk therapy turns hysterical misery to mundane unhappiness."
"Neurotics complain of their illness, but they make the most of it, and when it comes to taking it away from them they will defend it like a lioness her young."
"The paranoid is never entirely mistaken."
"One is very crazy when in love."
"I no longer count as one of my merits that I always tell the truth as much as possible; it has become my metier."
"One thing only do I know for certain and that is that man's judgments of value follow directly his wishes for happiness-that, accordingly, they are an attempt to support his illusions with arguments. [p.111]"
"When someone abuses me I can defend myself, but against praise I am defenceless."
"The intention that man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation."
"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead."
"Against the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation, keeping oneself aloof from other people. The happiness which can be achieved along this path is, as we see, the happiness of quietness. Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself."
"Creativity is an attempt to resolve a conflict generated by unexpressed biological impulses, such that unfulfilled desires are the driving force of the imagination, and they fuel our dreams and daydreams."
"Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs."
"Desire presses ever forward unsubdued."