The psychical, whatever its nature may be, is itself unconscious.

Properly speaking, the unconscious is the real psychic; its inner nature is just as unknown to us as the reality of the external world, and it is just as imperfectly reported to us through the data of consciousness as is the external world through the indications of our sensory organs.

Here libido and ego-interest share the same fate and have once more become indistinguishable from each other. The familiar egoism of the sick person covers them both. We find it so natural because we are certain that in the same situation we should behave in just the same way. The way in which the readiness to love, however great, is banished by bodily ailments, and suddenly replaced by complete indifference, is a theme which has been sufficiently exploited by comic writers.

The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind.

We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.

We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love.