Sigmund Freud Quotes

Austrian psychiatrist and founder of psychoanalysis (1856–1939)

Sigmund Freud ([ˈziːgmʊnt ˈfrɔʏ̯t]; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology. He was the father of Anna Freud, the grandfather of Sir Clement Freud and Lucian Freud, and the uncle of Edward Bernays.

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Alternative Names: Sigismund Schlomo Freud • Sigmund Schlomo Freud • Sigismund Freud • Freud

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Here is yet another important consideration for
helping us to understand the individual in a group:
Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of
an organised group, a man descends several rungs
in the ladder of civilization. Isolated, he may be a
cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian — that is, a creature acting by instinct. He possesses
the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also
the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.
He then dwells especially upon the lowering in
intellectual ability which an individual experiences when
he becomes merged in a group.

Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy.

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 surprised at the weakness of his intellect.

…much will be gained if we succeed in transforming your hysterical misery into common unhappiness. With a mental life that has been restored to health, you will be better armed against that unhappiness.

I think this man is suffering from memories.

Human life should not be considered as the proper material for wild experiments.

Dreams tell us many an unpleasant biological truth about ourselves and only very free minds can thrive on such a diet. Self-deception is a plant which withers fast in the pellucid atmosphere of dream investigation.

Every man has a right over his own life and war destroys lives that were full of promise; it forces the individual into situations that shame his manhood, obliging him to murder fellow men, against his will.”
Sigmund Freud wrote to Albert Einstein

There is a powerful force within us, an un-illuminated part of the mind – separate from the conscious mind that is constantly at work molding our thought, feelings, and actions.

This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. [speaking about the Irish]

Who lacks sex speaks about sex, hungry talks about food, a person who has no money - about money, and our oligarchs and bankers talk about morality

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

The sheer size too, the excessive abundance, scale, and exaggeration of dreams could be an infantile characteristic. The most ardent wish of children is to grow up and get as big a share of everything as the grown-ups; they are hard to satisfy; do not know the meaning of ‘enough.

The ordinary man cannot imagine this Providence in any other form but that of a greatly exalted father, for only such a one could understand the needs of the sons of men, or be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse. The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that to one whose attitude to humanity is friendly it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life. It is even more humiliating to discover what a large number of those alive today, who must see that this religion is not tenable, yet try to defend it inch by inch, as if with a series of pitiable rearguard actions.

Thus we arrive at the singular conclusion that of all the information passed by our cultural assets it is precisely the elements which might be of the greatest importance to us and which have the task of solving the riddles of the universe and of reconciling us to the sufferings of life — it is precisely those elements that are the least well authenticated of any.