Sigmund Freud

Psychoanalysis

Modern influential 108 sayings

Sayings by Sigmund Freud

Man's most precious possession is the capacity for love and work.

Unknown — Attributed, but precise source hard to pin down. Similar to 'Love and work are the cornerstones...'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The great task of man is to liberate himself from the illusions of his own mind.

Unknown — Attributed, but precise source hard to pin down.
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The unconscious is the true psychical reality; in its innermost nature it is as much unknown to us as the reality of the external world.

1899 — From 'The Interpretation of Dreams'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Anatomy is destiny.

1924 — From 'Collected Papers'
Strange & Unusual Confirmed

The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.

1927 — From 'The Future of an Illusion'
Strange & Unusual Confirmed

The only unnatural sexual behavior is none at all.

Unknown — Attributed, disputed origin
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.

Unknown — Attributed, disputed origin
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The more perfect a person is on the outside, the more demons they have on the inside.

Unknown — Attributed, disputed origin
Strange & Unusual Confirmed

The only person with whom you have to compare yourself is you in the past.

Unknown — Attributed, disputed origin
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The first requisite of civilization is that of justice.

1930 — From 'Civilization and Its Discontents'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious.

1915 — From 'The Unconscious'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego.

1923 — From 'The Ego and the Id'
Strange & Unusual Confirmed

The interpretation of dreams is the via regia to the unconscious.

1899 — From 'The Interpretation of Dreams'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The unconscious is the larger circle which includes within itself the smaller circle of the conscious.

1899 — From 'The Interpretation of Dreams'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man.

1930 — From 'Civilization and Its Discontents'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

The libido is the energy, regarded as a quantitative magnitude, of those instincts which have to do with all that may be comprised under the word 'love.'

1921 — From 'Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego'
Strange & Unusual Unverifiable

Civilization began the first time an angry man cast a stone instead of a word.

N/A (common theme) — Attributed, common theme in his work
Controversial Unverifiable

The complete sexual repression of the Victorian age led to an unprecedented increase in hysteria and other neurotic disorders.

N/A (common theme) — Attributed, common theme in his work on hysteria
Controversial Unverifiable

I consider myself to be a man of science, not a philosopher.

1917 — Introduction to Psychoanalysis
Controversial Unverifiable

The more the parents are separated from their children, the more the children are separated from their parents.

N/A (common theme) — Attributed, common theme in his work
Controversial Unverifiable