Sigmund Freud Quotes: Famous Sayings By Founder Of Psychoanalysis On His 161st Birth Anniversary

Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud has been referred to as one of the most influential figures of the 20th century and Saturday marks the 161st anniversary of his death.

As the founder of psychoanalysis, Freud is credited with creating a completely new approach for understanding the human personality. He developed a theory which says we are perpetually in an unconscious state where our sexual and aggressive impulses are fighting the defenses that protect against them for supremacy in our personalities.

He wrote a number of books in his lifetime, most well-known of which were “The Interpretation of Dreams” — where he looked at dreams in terms of unconscious desires and experiences — and “The Ego and the Id” — which revealed a new model of the mind, dividing it into the “id,” the “ego
and the “superego.”

Read: Artist Lucian Freud, Grandson of Sigmund Freud, Dies at 88

Born into a Jewish family, Freud was non-practicing but Nazis burnt a number of his books openly in 1933. A few years later, he fled Vienna for London, but died soon after of cancer soon after in 1939.

Here are some of Freud’s most influential quotes, courtesy Brainy Quotes and A-Z Quotes:

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

“We choose not randomly each other. We meet only those who already exist in our subconscious.”

“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization. ”

“One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful.”

“Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.”

“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'”

“I prefer the company of animals more than the company of humans. Certainly, a wild animal is cruel. But to be merciless is the privilege of civilized humans.”

“In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart.”

“The mind is like an iceberg, it floats with one-seventh of its bulk above water.”

“Once again, only religion can answer the question of the purpose of life. One can hardly be wrong in concluding that the idea of life having a purpose stands and falls with the religious system.”

“To be completely honest with oneself is the very best effort a human being can make.”

“I had the greatest respect for the authorities of my day — until I studied things for myself, and came to my own conclusions.”

“Psychoanalysis is in essence a cure through love.”

“We are what we are because we have been what we have been.”

“Civilized society is perpetually menaced with disintegration through this primary hostility of men towards one another.”

“America is a mistake, a giant mistake.”

“What progress we are making. In the Middle Ages they would have burned me. Now they are content with burning my books.”