A Quote by Sigmund Freud

Another technique for fending off suffering is the employment of the displacements of libido which our mental apparatus permits of and through which its function gains so much in flexibility. The task here is that of shifting the instinctual aims in such a way that they cannot come up against frustration from the external world.

Sigmund Freud

Quote Topics

Against Aims Another Apparatus Cannot Come Come Up Employment External Flexibility Frustration Function Gains Libido Mental Much Off Our Permits Shifting Such A Way Suffering Task Technique Through Up Way Which World

Quote Author

Sigmund Freud
Austrian - Psychologist
May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939

Our possibilities of happiness are already restricted by our constitution. Unhappiness is much less difficult to experience. We are threatened with suffering from three directions: from our own body, which is doomed to decay and dissolution and which cannot even do without pain and anxiety as warning signals; from the external world, which may rage against us with overwhelming and merciless forces of destruction; and finally from our relations to other men. The suffering which comes from this last source is perhaps more painful to us than any other.

Sigmund Freud

Against the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation, keeping oneself aloof from other people. The happiness which can be achieved along this path is, as we see, the happiness of quietness. Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself.

Sigmund Freud

The transformation of object-libido into narcissistic libido which thus takes place obviously implies an abandonment of sexual aims, a desexualization - a kind of sublimation, therefore.

Sigmund Freud

What sets us against one another is not our aims - they all come to the same thing - but our methods, which are the fruit of our varied reasoning.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

It is alone that part of the external universe which we call material which acts on man through his senses - that part of which we ordinarily feel our knowledge to be the surest; but in reality, strangely enough, as will soon appear, this is one of the aspects of the external world, of which we can know nothing.

Richard Maurice Bucke

I discovered early that the hardest thing to overcome is not a physical disability but the mental condition which it induces. The world, I found, has a way of taking a man pretty much at his own rating. If he permits his loss to make him embarrassed and apologetic, he will draw embarrassment from others. But if he gains his own respect, the respect of those around him comes easily.

Alexander P. de Seversky

The function of violence is to obtain reform by external means, the function of passive resistance, that is, soul-force, is to obtain it by growth from within, which, in its turn, is obtained by self-suffering, self-purification.

Mahatma Gandhi

If there is no enjoyment in this world, there would not be so much suffering. As suffering really is the frustration of our attempts to enjoy.

Radhanath Swami

This is the beauty of the democratic process: it permits that subjective view of justice - which everyone holds - permits that subjective way to express itself peacefully through discussion, through reason and through the voting process.

Pierre Trudeau

That which should distinguish the suffering of believers from unbelievers is the confidence that our suffering is under the control of an all-powerful and all-loving God. Our suffering has meaning and purpose in God's eternal plan, and He brings or allows to come into our lives only that which is for His glory and our good.

Jerry Bridges

The world is very complicated and it is clearly impossible for the human mind to understand it completely. Man has therefore devised an artifice which permits the complicated nature of the world to be blamed on something which is called accidental and thus permits him to abstract a domain in which simple laws can be found.

Eugene Wigner

The camera is much more than a recording apparatus, it is a medium via which messages reach us from another world.

Orson Welles

The assault of our enemies is not part of our life; it is only part of our experience; we throw it off and guard ourselves against it as against frost, storm, rain, hail, or any other of the external evils which may be expected to happen.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Humor is a wonderful way to deal with our suffering because if we can laugh at our troubles, we can feel better. Thich Nhat Hanh is a special man who has helped millions with their suffering with incredible technique. But he doesn't know real suffering, because he has not dated as much as I have.

Garry Shandling

The soul journey inward is when we are invited to cast aside beliefs and behaviors that no longer serve us and release all tendencies toward victimhood, stagnation, passivity, and self-destruction that keep us disempowered or cause frustration and suffering to ourselves and others. This is no easy task, and one in which we can use all the divine support possible to help us on our way. It is a time to pray.