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...perhaps the hopes I have confessed to are of an illusory nature, too. But I hold fast to one distinction. Apart from the fact that no penalty is imposed for not sharing them, my illusions are not, like religious ones, incapable of correction.
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All elongated objects, such as sticks, tree-trunks and umbrellas(the opening of these last being comparable to an erection) may stand for the male organ...Boxes, cases, chests, cupboards, and ovens represent the uterus...Rooms in dreams are usually women...Many landscapes in dreams, especially any containing breidges or wooded hills, may clearly be recognized as descriptions of the genitals.
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Psychiatry is the art of teaching people how to stand on their own feet while reclining on couches.
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I take up the standpoint that the tendency to aggression is an innate, independent, instinctual disposition in man, and I come back now to the statement that it constitutes the most powerful obstacle to culture.
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What psycho-analysis reveals in the transference phenomena of neurotics can also be observed in the lives of some normal people. The impression they give is of being pursued by a malignant fate or possessed by some 'daemonic' power; but psycho-analysis has always taken the view that their fate is for the most part arranged by themselves and determined by early infantile influences.
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This transmissibility of taboo is a reflection of the tendency, on which we have already remarked, for the unconscious instinct in the neurosis to shift constantly along associative paths on to new objects.
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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?
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We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exists in our subconscious.
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In human beings pure masculinity or femininity is not to be found either in a psychological or biological sense.
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A piece of creative writing, like a day-dream, is a continuation of, and a substitute for, what was once the play of childhood.
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Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair; they can transfer knowledge from teacher to student; words enable the orator to sway his audience and dictate its decisions. Words are capable of arousing the strongest emotions and prompting all men's actions.
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No neurotic harbors thoughts of suicide which are not murderous impulses against others redirected upon himself.
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We must not allow ourselves to be deflected by the feminists who are anxious to force us to regard the two sexes as completely equal in position and worth.
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All family life is organized around the most damaged person in it.
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If children could, if adults knew.
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The effect of the consolations of religion may be compared to that of a narcotic.
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The communal life of human beings had . . . a two-fold foundation: the compulsion to work, which was created by external necessity, and the power of love.
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The doctor should be opaque to his patients and, like a mirror, should show them nothing but what is shown to him.
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Only the real, rare, true scientific minds can endure doubt, which is attached to all our knowledge.
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I do not in the least underestimate bisexuality... I expect it to provide all further enlightenment.
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A civilization which leaves so large a number of its participants unsatisfied and drives them into revolt neither has nor deserves the prospect of a lasting existence.
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I no longer count as one of my merits that I always tell the truth as much as possible; it has become my metier.
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Our fascination with gold is related to the fantasies of early childhood.
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The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing.