Consulting the Archives...
Generating fresh insights specifically for this topic.
This may take a moment.
Generating fresh insights specifically for this topic.
This may take a moment.
In *Civilization and Its Discontents*, Freud explored the tragic nature of human society. He argued that civilization demands the repression of our instincts in exchange for security. This creates an inevitable tension or 'discontent. ' His wisdom lies in the acceptance of this trade-off. He teaches that we cannot have total freedom and total safety simultaneously, and that maturity involves accepting the compromises necessary to live together.
"What a progressive society needs is not a suppression of the instincts, but a transformation of them."
"Anxiety is a signal of unpleasure."
"One day, in retrospect, the years of struggle will strike you as the most beautiful."
"The ego cannot protect itself from internal instinctual dangers as well as it can from an external piece of reality."
"Anxiety is the reaction to the threat of a loss of love."
"The virtuous man contents himself with dreaming that which the wicked man does in actual life."
"Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock."
"The aim of all life is death."
"The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization."
"Out of your vulnerabilities will come your strength."
"It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct."
"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."
"One thing is certain: that the problem of anxiety is a nodal point at which the most various and important questions converge."
"A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes but to get into accord with them: they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world."
"Everywhere I go I find a poet has been there before me."
"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead."
"The ego is not master in its own house."
"The voice of the intellect is a soft one, but it does not rest until it has gained a hearing."
"Anxiety is the reaction to the danger of being separated."
"Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility."
"The feeling of happiness is not a stationary condition but a manifestation of the sudden satisfaction of highly dammed-up needs."
"Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine."
"Words have a magical power. They can bring either the greatest happiness or deepest despair."
"In the small matters trust the mind, in the large ones the heart."
"The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization."
Seeing how Sigmund Freud approaches Wisdom helps you apply the idea with more precision.
Pick one quote to guide a decision today, then return for deeper perspective.
Search More
Jump to another topic, author, or pillar without leaving the archive.
"Use this collection whenever you need Sigmund Freud's lens on Wisdom."