“It was strange to find that love does not spring from abundance and richness of the ego, but is a way out of inner distress and poverty. We were surprised to discover that our first love is not directed either to another person or to ourselves, but to an imaginary ideal ego, to an image of ourselves as we would… — Theodor Reik Copy Share
The man who has never made a fool of himself in love will never be wise in love. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
“The original restrictive meaning of sexual aberration which derives satisfaction from a passive relation to the partner has been retained. Masochism, however, has come to mean also a particular attitude toward life or a definite type of social behavior: of enjoying one’s own suffering or one’s own helplessness. The word has outgrown its narrower, sexual meaning and become desexualized.” — Theodor Reik Copy Share
Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
We are all in a race for dear life: that is to say, we are fugitives from death. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words . . . love and achievement.… — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
To express unafraid and unashamed what one really thinks and feels is one of the great consolations of life. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
The secret of human happiness is not in self-seeking but in self-forgetting. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
In our civilization men are afraid they will not be man enough, and women are afraid that they might be considered only women. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
The repressed memory is like a noisy intruder being thrown out of the concert hall. You can throw him out, but he will bang… — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves. — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
“In our civilization men are afraid they will not be men enough, and women are afraid they might be considered only women.” — Theodor Reik Copy Share Image
