Sigmund Freud Quotes

The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.

Before language, cavemen simply grunted, and then they used the club. Communication changed that. It's the mechanism that created civilization and prevents its own destruction.

Social thinking requires very exacting thresholds to be powerful. For example, we've had social thinking for 200,000 years, and hardly anything happened that could be considered progress over most of that time. This is because what is most pervasive about social thinking is 'how to get along and mutually cope.'

Ask, 'How are we different from the great apes?' We have culture, we have civilisation, and we have language to be celebrated as part of being human.

Language turned apes like us into civil creatures.

Illiteracy causes violence. If you don't have enough words in your vocabulary, you can't even seek your way out of a situation.

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. Then something happened which unleashed the power of our imagination. We learned to talk and we learned to listen.

I see those picketers, and I think you know, if I weren't a loving, non-violent, spiritual person, I would really go over there and grab those signs and smash them over their heads and shove them up their asses. But...I'm a loving, spiritual person.

Look at it this way: I might be saying you're fat, but at least I'm not punching you in the face.' Are those the only options?' Not always. Just sometimes.

You swore you wouldn't shout. If it's not your punch, then it's your pout.

If I didn't have writing, I'd be running down the street hurling grenades in people's faces.

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of one without the other.

Let not your rage or malice destroy a life.

Often times I have hated in self-defense; if I were stronger I would not have used such a weapon.

Hate is a fear, and fear is rot That cankers root and fruit alike, Fight cleanly then, hate not, fear not, Strike with no madness when you strike.

The boy spoke two words, the first a short guttural verb, the second “you.

Why you don't wanna let him talk? You mad, you maaad, you maaaaad.

I 'aint a killer but don't push me.

--I truly and deeply wanted to kill him. And I believe I could have done it, with nothing but my hands. But all of a sudden, out of nowhere, Peter had an arm around me. "Let it go, Kade," he was whispering very gently, though his arm was nearly crushing me. "Open your fists," he said, "and let go of the coals.

Language is our way of communicating what we want and who we are.

I hardly ever talk- words seem such a waste, and they are none of them true. No one has yet invented a language from my point of view.

What I think is going on is that probably language was entertainment long before it was meaning. It's a kind of tuneless singing.

Hath any wounded thee with injuries? Meet them with patience. Hasty words rankle the wound; soft language dresses it.

All the men I did get to know, every single man of them, has filled me with but one desire: to lift my hand and bring it smashing down on his face.