Religion Quotes by Sigmund Freud

The idea of life having a purpose stands and falls with the religious system.

— Sigmund Freud

The effect of the consolations of religion may be compared to that of a narcotic.

— Sigmund Freud

When we attempt to imagine death, we perceive ourselves as spectators.

— Sigmund Freud

At bottom God is nothing more than an exalted father.

— Sigmund Freud

Religion: Something comparable to childhood neurosis

— Sigmund Freud

Cruelty and intolerance to those who do not belong to it are natural to every religion.

— Sigmund Freud

I regard myself as one of the most dangerous enemies of religion

— Sigmund Freud

When a man is freed of religion, he has a better chance to live a normal and wholesome life.

— Sigmund Freud

If the truth of religious doctrines is dependent on an inner experience that bears witness to the truth, what is one to…

— Sigmund Freud

Religious illusion must bow to scientific truth. It is in total error about the nature of the true world. Only science is…

— Sigmund Freud

Religious ideas have sprung from the same need as all the other achievements of culture: from the necessity for defending itself against…

— Sigmund Freud

In the long run, nothing can withstand reason and experience, and the contradiction religion offers to both is palpable.

— Sigmund Freud

The religions of mankind must be classed among the mass-delusions of this kind. No one, needless to say, who shares a delusion…

— Sigmund Freud

Religious doctrines … are all illusions, they do not admit of proof, and no one can be compelled to consider them as…

— Sigmund Freud

Humanity is in the highest degree irrational, so that there is no prospect of influencing it by reasonable arguments. Against prejudice one…

— Sigmund Freud

Civilization runs a greater risk if we maintain our present attitude to religion than if we give it up.

— Sigmund Freud

“It is easy to show that the ego ideal answers to everything that is expected of the higher nature of man. As…

— Sigmund Freud

In so doing, the idea forces itself upon him that religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis, and he is optimistic enough…

— Sigmund Freud

The Mosaic religion had been a Father religion; Christianity became a Son religion. The old God, the Father, took second place; Christ,…

— Sigmund Freud

The different religions have never overlooked the part played by the sense of guilt in civilization. What is more, they come forward…

— Sigmund Freud

Religion is a system of wishful illusions together with a disavowal of reality, such as we find nowhere else but in a…

— Sigmund Freud

These [religious ideas] are given out as teachings, are not precipitates of experience or end-results of thinking: they are illusions, fullfilments of…

— Sigmund Freud

If one wishes to form a true estimate of the full grandeur of religion, one must keep in mind what it undertakes…

— Sigmund Freud

Once again, only religion can answer the question of the purpose of life. One can hardly be wrong in concluding that the…

— Sigmund Freud

Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world which…

— Sigmund Freud

“If you want to expel religion from our European civilization, you can only do it by means of another system of doctrines;…

— Sigmund Freud

“Observe the difference between your attitude to illusions and mine. You have to defend the religious illusion with all your might. If…

— Sigmund Freud

Our knowledge of the historical worth of certain religious doctrines increases our respect for them, but does not invalidate our proposal that…

— Sigmund Freud

Religion restricts the play of choice and adaptation, since it imposes equally on everyone its own path to the acquisition of happiness…

— Sigmund Freud

If all the evidence put forward for the authenticity of religious teachings originates in the past, it is natural to look round…

— Sigmund Freud

“It would be an undoubted advantage if we were to leave God out altogether and honestly admit the purely human origin of…

— Sigmund Freud

“Actually, the substitution of the reality-principle for the pleasure-principle denotes no dethronement of the pleasure-principle, but only a safeguarding of it. A…

— Sigmund Freud

“Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which…

— Sigmund Freud

“Religion has clearly performed great services for human civilization. It has contributed much towards the taming of the asocial instincts. But not…

— Sigmund Freud

“Three tendencies can be observed in the estimation of dreams. Many philosophers have given currency to one of these tendencies, one which…

— Sigmund Freud

Immorality, no less than morality, has at all times found support in religion.

— Sigmund Freud

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis.

— Sigmund Freud

Religion (is) a universal obsessional neurosis.

— Sigmund Freud

Religion [is] the universal obsessional neurosis of humanity

— Sigmund Freud

A religion, even if it calls itself a religion of love, must be hard and unloving to those who do not belong…

— Sigmund Freud