Treva Evetts > Treva's Quotes

“Religion has clearly performed great services for human civilization. It has contributed much towards the taming of the asocial instincts. But not enough. It has ruled human society for many thousands of years and has had time to show what it can achieve. If it had succeeded in making the majority of mankind happy, in comforting them, in reconciling them to life and in making them into vehicles of civilization, no one would dream of attempting to alter the existing conditions. But what do we see instead? We see that an appallingly large number of people are dissatisfied with civilization and unhappy in it, and feel it as a yoke which must be shaken off; and that these people either do everything in their power to change that civilization, or else go so far in their hostility to it that they will have nothing to do with civilization or with a restriction of instinct. At this point it will be objected against us that this state of affairs is due to the very fact that religion has lost a part of its influence over human masses precisely because of the deplorable effect of the advances of science. We will note this admission and the reason given for it, and we shall make use of it later for our own purposes; but the objection itself has no force.

It is doubtful whether men were in general happier at a time when religious doctrines held unrestricted sway; more moral they certainly were not. They have always known how to externalize the precepts of religion and thus to nullify their intentions. The priests, whose duty it was to ensure obedience to religion, met them half-way in this. God's kindness must lay a restraining hand on His justice. One sinned, and then one made a sacrifice or did penance and then one was free to sin once more. Russian introspectiveness has reached the pitch of concluding that sin is indispensable for the enjoyment of all the blessings of divine grace, so that, at bottom, sin is pleasing to God. It is no secret that the priests could only keep the masses submissive to religion by making such large concessions as these to the instinctual nature of man. Thus it was agreed: God alone is strong and good, man is weak and sinful. In every age immorality has found no less support in religion than morality has. If the achievements of religion in respect to man’s happiness, susceptibility to culture and moral control are no better than this, the question cannot but arise whether we are not overrating its necessity for mankind, and whether we do wisely in basing our cultural demands upon it.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“No one who, like me, conjures up the most evil of those half-tamed demons that inhabit the human breast, and seeks to wrestle with them, can expect to come through the struggle unscathed”
― Sigmund Freud, Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria

“Words were originally magic, and the word retains much of its old magical power even to-day. With words one man can make another blessed, or drive him to despair; by words the teacher transfers his knowledge to the pupil; by words the speaker sweeps his audience with him and determines its judgments and decisions. Words call forth effects and are the universal means of influencing human beings.”
― Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

“Human life should not be considered as the proper material for wild experiments.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

“This is one race of people for whom psychoanalysis is of no use whatsoever. [speaking about the Irish]”
― Sigmund Freud

“In my Future of an Illusion I was concerned [...] with what the ordinary man understands by his religion, that system of doctrines and pledges that on the one hand explains the riddle of this world to him with an enviable completeness, and on the other assures him that a solicitous Providence is watching over him and will make up to him in a future existence for any shortcomings in this life. The ordinary man cannot imagine this Providence in any other from but that of a greatly exalted father, for only such a one could understand the needs of the sons of men, or be softened by their prayers and placated by the signs of their remorse. The whole thing is so patently infantile, so incongruous with reality, that to one whose attitude to humanity is friendly it is painful to think that the great majority of mortals will never be able to rise above this view of life.”
― Freud Sigmund, Civilization and Its Discontents

“Dream's evanescence, the way in which, on awakening, our thoughts thrust it aside as something bizarre, and our reminiscences mutilating or rejecting it—all these and many other problems have for many hundred years demanded answers which up till now could never have been satisfactory.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

“The element of truth behind all this, which people are so ready to disavow, is that men are not gentle creatures who want to be loved, and who at the most can defend themselves if they are attacked; they are, on the contrary, creatures among whose instinctual endowments is to be reckoned a powerful share of aggressiveness.”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“The freeing of an individual, as he grows up, from the authority of his parents is one of the most necessary though one of the most painful results brought about by the course of his development. It is quite essential that that liberation should occur and it may be presumed that it has been to some extent achieved by everyone who has reached a normal state. Indeed, the whole progress of society rests upon the opposition between successive generations. On the other hand, there is a class of neurotics whose condition is recognizably determined by their having failed in this task.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Sexual Enlightenment of Children

“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.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“Where does a thought go when it's forgotten?”
― Sigmund Freud

“According to the prevailing view human sexual life consists essentially in an endeavor to bring one's own genitals into contact with those of someone of the opposite sex.”
― Sigmund Freud, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis

“Observe the difference between your attitude to illusions and mine. You have to defend the religious illusion with all your might. If it becomes discredited - and indeed the threat to it is great enough - then your world collapses. There is nothing left for you but to despair of everything, of civilization and the future of mankind. From that bondage I am, we are, free. Since we are prepared to renounce a good part of our infantile wishes, we can bear it if a few of our expectations turn out to be illusions.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

“The woman who refuses to see her sexual organs as mere wood chips, designed to make the man's life more comfortable, is in danger of becoming a lesbian--an active, phallic woman, an intellectual virago with a fire of her own .... The lesbian body is a particularly pernicious and depraved version of the female body in general; it is susceptible to auto-eroticism, clitoral pleasure and self-actualization.”
― Sigmund Freud

“It only too often yields to the temptation to become sycophantic, opportunist and lying, like a politician who sees the truth but wants to keep his place in popular favour.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Ego and the Id

“What is common in all these dreams is obvious. They completely satisfy wishes excited during the day which remain unrealized. They are simply and undisguisedly realizations of wishes.”
― Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams

“It is impossible to overlook the extent to which civilization is built up upon a renunciation of instinct....”
― Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents

“A transference neurosis corresponds to a conflict between ego and id, a narcissistic neurosis corresponds to that between between ego and super-ego, and a psychosis to that between ego and outer world.”
― Sigmund Freud, General Psychological Theory: Papers on Metapsychology

“Where such men love they have no desire and where they desire they cannot love”
― Sigmund Freud

“It is a predisposition of human nature to consider an unpleasant idea untrue, and then it is easy to find arguments against it.”
― Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis

“I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“What we like to think of ourselves and what we really are rarely have much in common....”
― Stephen King, The Drawing of the Three

“The real world reveals itself like surprise gifts on our doorstep, special moments that seem above and beyond the reality of others. These times are full, beautiful and meaningful beyond words, even when wrapped in pain.”
― Christopher Hawke, Unnatural Truth

“We went to school in a place without the sun,and believed this means we had no need of our shadows.”
― Kamila Shamsie, Salt and Saffron

“Life is meaningless; man's biggest challenge is to make it meaningful!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan

“Listen to that little voice inside you. Sometimes it can whisper meaningful words of wisdom and make more sense than the deafening noise of opinions and judgements outside.”
― Roopleen

“We're all getting too smart. Our brains are just getting bigger and bigger, and the world dries up and dies when there's too much thought and not enough heart.”
― Aimee Bender, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt

“The heart of a man
is no heart at all
If his heart is not loved by a women.

The heart of a women
is no heart at all
If her heart isn't loving a man.

But the heart of a man and women in love
Can be worse than not having a heart at all
Because at least if you have no heart at all
It can't die when it breaks apart.”
― colleen hoover

“I’ll never let you go is scrawled three inches long down the side of my ribcage. The skin is still an angry red color, puffy and irritated looking. My gaze drifts up to Colin’s in the mirror. I suck in a sharp breath as I’m caught up in a tornado of emotion. He has the same thing on his arm. They are simple, black ink only, but the meaning of the words are anything but.”
― K. Larsen, 30 Days

“I cannot begin to say where this belief in Prophecy comes from. The future surely holds the same for us all and that is to return to the Goddess in death. What matters most is what we do while we are here! May the Goddess grant the Gryffin wisdom as they pursue their Destiny. By bringing them to contemplate their actions, she might teach them that happiness and fulfillment are concerns of the present as well as the future.”
― S.J. Faerlind