Theodor Reik

“It was strange to find that love does not spring from abundance and richness of the ego, but is a way out…

— Theodor Reik

The man who has never made a fool of himself in love will never be wise in love.

— Theodor Reik

“The original restrictive meaning of sexual aberration which derives satisfaction from a passive relation to the partner has been retained. Masochism, however,…

— Theodor Reik

Great innovators and original thinkers and artists attract the wrath of mediocrities as lightning rods draw the flashes.

— Theodor Reik

We are all in a race for dear life: that is to say, we are fugitives from death.

— Theodor Reik

There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words . . . love…

— Theodor Reik

To express unafraid and unashamed what one really thinks and feels is one of the great consolations of life.

— Theodor Reik

The secret of human happiness is not in self-seeking but in self-forgetting.

— Theodor Reik

In our civilization men are afraid they will not be man enough, and women are afraid that they might be considered only…

— Theodor Reik

The repressed memory is like a noisy intruder being thrown out of the concert hall. You can throw him out, but he…

— Theodor Reik

Nothing said to us, nothing we can learn from others, reaches us so deep as that which we find in ourselves.

— Theodor Reik

“In our civilization men are afraid they will not be men enough, and women are afraid they might be considered only women.”

— Theodor Reik

“He who licks his wounds cannot be affectionate”

— Theodor Reik

He [Freud] often said three things were impossible to fulfill completely; healing, education, governing. He limited his goals in analytic treatment to…

— Theodor Reik

It is always possible to approach a goal by a detour.

— Theodor Reik

Women in general want to be loved for what they are and men for what they accomplish.

— Theodor Reik

Romance fails us and so do friendships, but the relationship of parent and child, less noisy than all the others, remains indelible…

— Theodor Reik

In order to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy.

— Theodor Reik

The lover is a monotheist who knows that other people worship different gods but cannot himself imagine that there could be other…

— Theodor Reik

No person loving or admiring himself is alone.

— Theodor Reik

Women see through each other, but they rarely look into themselves.

— Theodor Reik

“…if you cannot hate you cannot love. If you cannot bite you can not kiss. If you cannot curse you cannot bless.…

— Theodor Reik

Work and love; these are the basics. Without them there is neurosis.

— Theodor Reik

“The fear to love reaches sometimes the depth of a panic, resembles sometimes the fear to die.”

— Theodor Reik