“Civilization began the first time an angry person cast a word instead of a rock.”

The liberty of the individual is no gift of civilization. It was greatest before there was any civilization.

Poets are masters of us ordinary men, in knowledge of the mind because they drink at streams which we have not yet made accessible to science.

Beauty has no obvious use; nor is there any clear cultural necessity for it. Yet civilization could not do without it.

It is not attention that the child is seeking, but love.

Where id was, there ego shall be.

Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have , so to speak , pawned a part of their narcissism.

I cannot think of any need in childhood as strong as the need for a father’s protection.

Men are more moral than they think and far more immoral than they can imagine.

When one does not have what one wants, one must want what one has.

The behavior of a human being in sexual matters is often a prototype for the whole of his other modes of reaction in life.

Humanity is in the highest degree irrational, so that there is no prospect of influencing it by reasonable arguments. Against prejudice one can do nothing.

The only shame in masturbation is the shame of not doing it well.

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.

Love and work are the cornerstones of our humanness.

I have found little ‘good’ about human beings. In my experience, most of them are trash.

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

Talk to each other. Never go to bed when you’re angry with each other. Lady Antonia Frasier who was married to Harold Pinter said they never went to bed on an argument.

One of the great conditions of anger and hatred is, that you must tell and believe lies against the hated object, in order, as we said, to be consistent.

When times are tough and people are frustrated and angry and hurting and uncertain, the politics of constant conflict may be good. But what is good politics does not necessarily work in the real world. What works in the real world is cooperation.

When I lose my temper, honey, you can’t find it any place.

Ah me! we wound where we never intended to strike; we create anger where we never meant harm; and these thoughts are the thorns in our cushion.

Patience is a conquering virtue. The learned say that, if it not desert you, It vanquishes what force can never reach; Why answer back at every angry speech? No, learn forbearance or, I’ll tell you what, You will be taught it, whether you will or not.

Fly from wrath; sad be the sights and bitter fruits of war; a thousand furies wait on wrathful swords.

Hasty wrath and heedless hazardy do breed repentance late and lasting infamy.