Knowledge Is The Intellectual Manipulation Of Carefully

A Child In Its Greed For Love Does Not Enjoy Having To Share The Affection Of Its Parents With Its Brothers And Sisters; And It Notices That The Whole Of Their Affection Is Lavished Upon It Once More Whenever It Arouses Their Anxiety By Falling Ill. It Has Now Discovered A Means Of Enticing Out Its Parents' Love And Will Make Use Of That Means As Soon As It Has The Necessary Psychical Material At Its Disposal For Producing An Illness.

Civilization Is A Process In The Service Of Eros, Whose Purpose Is To Combine Single Human Individuals, And After That Families, Then Races, Peoples And Nations, Into One Great Unity, The Unity Of Mankind. Why This Has To Happen, We Do Not Know; The Work Of Eros Is Precisely This.

Illusions Commend Themselves To Us Because They Save Us Pain And Allow Us To Enjoy Pleasure Instead. We Must Therefore Accept It Without Complaint When They Sometimes Collide With A Bit Of Reality Against Which They Are Dashed To Pieces.

I Have Often Felt As Though I Had Inherited All The Defiance And All The Passions With Which Our Ancestors Defended Their Temple And Could Gladly Sacrifice My Life For One Great Moment In History. And At The Same Time I Always Felt So Helpless And Incapable Of Expressing These Ardent Passions Even By A Word Or A Poem.

When We Attempt To Imagine Death, We Perceive Ourselves As Spectators.