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.
Maturity is the ability to postpone gratification.
The madman is a dreamer awake.
To be completely honest with oneself is the very best effort a human being can make.
From error to error one discovers the entire truth.
Yes, America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake.
The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious.
The creative writer does the same as the child at play; he creates a world of fantasy which he takes very seriously.
When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has.
All giving is asking, and all asking is an asking for love.
In general people experience their present naively, as it were, without being able to form an estimate of its contents; they have first to put themselves at a distance from it – the present, that is to say, must have become the past – before it can yield points of vantage from which to judge the future.
In the depths of my heart I can’t help being convinced that my dear fellow-men, with a few exceptions, are worthless.
The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.
When we share – that is poetry in the prose of life.
The most complicated achievements of thought are possible without the assistance of consciousness.
In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.
Desire presses ever forward unsubdued.
A fear of weapons is a sign of retarded sexual and emotional maturity.
Conscience is the internal perception of the rejection of a particular wish operating within us.
If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience that bears witness to the truth, what is one to make of the many people who do not have that experience?