Happy Birthday to Sigmund Freud

Sigismund Schlomo Freud was born at Freiburg, now part of the Czech Republic, on this day in 1856. Sigmund's mother was twenty years younger than his father, younger than his step-brother, and Sigmund was an uncle on the day he was born. After the recession of 1865 the family moved to Leipzig, then Vienna, where Freud graduated from gymnasium with honors and went on to Universität Wien. He spent four weeks dissecting eels attempting to locate the testicles, after publishing his failure he switched to “psychodynamics” and searched for hidden sexual urges in humans.

Fortunately, at least some of what he had to say makes sense.

“A man should not strive to eliminate his complexes, but to get into accord with them, for they are legitimately what directs his conduct in the world.”

“Devout believers are safe-guarded in a high degree against the risk of certain neurotic illnesses; their acceptance of the universal neurosis spares them the task of building a personal one.”

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

“Whoever loves becomes humble. Those who love have, so to speak, pawned a part of their narcissism.”

“Where id is, there shall ego be.”

“Such progress we have made! In the Middle Ages, they would have burned me as a witch, but now they are content to burn my book.”

     All from Sigmund Freud, 1856 – 1939

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James A. Restucci is the author of this blog. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Internal License.

One Response to Happy Birthday to Sigmund Freud

  1. TVNews says:

    A tip of the hat to the man that gave us the term “Freudian slip.”