Quotes from Sigmund Freud

In his fight against the powers of the surrounding world his first weapon was magic, the first forerunner of our modern technology. We suppose that this confidence in magic is derived from the over-estimation of the individual's own intellectual operations, from the belief in the 'omnipotence of thoughts', which, incidentally, we come across again in our obsessional neurotics.

We have formed the idea that in each individual there is a coherent organization of mental processes; and we call this his ego. It is to this ego that consciousness is attached; the ego controls the approaches to motility-that is, to the discharge of excitations into the external world; it is the mental agency which supervises all its own constituent processes, and which goes to sleep at night, though even then it exercises the censorship on dreams.

I am not really a man of science, not an observer, not an experimenter, and not a thinker. I am by temperament nothing but a conquistador...with the curiosity, the boldness, and the tenacity that belong to that type of person.

Nunca dominaremos completamente a natureza, e nosso organismo, ele mesmo parte dessa natureza, será sempre uma construção transitória, limitada em adequação e desemprenho.

É seguro supor, portanto, que o que foi sonhado no sonho é uma representação da realidase, a verdadeira lembrança, ao passo que a continuação do sonho, pelo contrário, meramente representa o que aquele que sonha deseja. Incluir algo num sonho dentro de um sonho equivale assim a desejar que a coisa descrita como um sonho jamais tivesse acontecido.

The state demands the utmost obedience and sacrifice of its citizens, but at the same time, it treats them as children through an excess of secrecy, and a censorship of news and expression of opinion, which render the minds of those who are, thus, intellectually repressed, defenseless against every unfavorable situation, and every wild rumor.

We know that the first step towards attaining intellectual mastery of our environment is to discover generalizations, rules and laws which bring order into chaos. In doing this we simplify the world of phenomena; but we cannot avoid falsifying it, especially if we are dealing with the process of development and change. What we are concerned with is discerning a qualitative alteration, and as a rule in doing so we neglect, at any rate to begin with, a quantitative factor.

It may be said that hysteria is as ignorant of the science of the structure of the nervous system as we ourselves before we have learnt it.

The interfering intention in the tongue slip may stand in a significant relation to the intention interfered with, and then the former contains a contradiction of the latter, correcting or supplementing it. Or, to take a less intelligible and more interesting case, the interfering intention has nothing to do with the intention interfered with.

Least of all should the artist be held responsible for the fate which befalls his works.

Aber wenn das menschliche Schuldgefühl auf die Tötung des Urvaters zurückgeht, das war doch ein Fall von 'Reue', und damals soll der Voraussetzung nach Gewissen und Schuldgefühl vor der Tat nicht bestanden haben? Woher kam in diesem Fall die Reue?

En cuanto a las necesidades religiosas, considero irrefutable su derivación del desamparo infantil y de la nostalgia por el padre

Na opinião de Delboeuf, existe apenas um critério válido para determinar se estamos sonhando ou acordados, e esse é o critério puramente empírico do fato de acordarmos.

character-traits of orderliness, parsimony and obstinacy, which are so often prominent in people who were formerly anal erotics, are to be regarded as the first and most constant results of the sublimation of anal eroticism

we cannot fail to recognise the influence which the progressive control over natural forces exerts on the social relationships between men, since men always place their newly won powers at the service of their aggressiveness, and use them against one another.

The female genital is symbolically represented by all those objects which share its peculiarity of enclosing a space capable of being filled by something—viz., by pits, caves, and hollows, by pitchers and bottles, by boxes and trunks, jars, cases, pockets, etc. Theship, too, belongs in this category.

Vocês críticos, ou outra denominação que dêe a vocês mesmos, ficam envergonhados ou assustados com as extravagâncias momentâneas e passageiras que se encontram em todas as mentes verdadeiramente criativas e cuja duração, maior ou menor, distingue o artista que pensa do sonhador. Vocês se queixam de sua improdutividade porque rejeitam muito cedo e discriminam com demasiada severidade.

If we thus recognise that the aim is to equip the group with the attributes of the individual, we shall be reminded of a valuable remark of Trotter's, to the effect that the tendency towards the formation of groups is biologically a continuation of the multicellular character of all the higher organisms.

Certain inadequacies in our psychic performance and certain actions performed apparently unintentionally prove, when methods of psychoanalytical investigation are applied to them, to be well motivated and determined by factors of which the conscious mind is unaware.

We may say that the patient does not remember anything at all of what he has forgotten and repressed, but rather acts it out. He reproduces it not as a memory, but as an action; he repeats it, without of course being aware of the fact that he is repeating it.

The greater the resistance, the more thoroughly remembering will be replaced by acting out (repetition)....he repeats everything deriving from the repressed element within himself that has already established itself in his manifest personality.

Woe to you, my Princess, when I come... you shall see who is the stronger, a gentle girl who doesn't eat enough or a big wild man who has cocaine in his body.

woman who has just been delivered of a child, Her oven has caved in.

And I will go on kissing you till you are strong and gay and happy — and if they haven't died, they are still alive today.