The ego represents what we call reason and sanity, in contrast to the id which contains the passions.

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

Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind, because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.

Love in the form of longing and deprivation lowers the self regard.

Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.

None believes in his own death. In the unconscious everyone is convinced of his own immortality.

America is a mistake, a giant mistake.

If you can't do it, give up!

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

The news that reaches your consciousness is incomplete and often not to be relied on.... Turn your eyes inward, look into your own depths, learn first to know yourself!

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

When a love-relationship is at its height there is no room left for any interest in the environment; a pair of lovers are sufficient to themselves

Dreams are constructed from the residue of yesterday.

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.

Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.

Two hallmarks of a healthy life are the abilities to love and to work. Each requires imagination.

Conservatism, however, is too often a welcome excuse for lazy minds, loath to adapt themselves to fast changing conditions.

Were we fully to understand the reasons for other people's behavior, it would all make sense.