"[F]reedom cannot be legislated into existence—though it can be legislated out of existence if the necessary minimum of free government is destroyed. ...[F]reedom rests upon beliefs and social institutions and not upon laws. ...[L]egislative enactment does not create or determine institutional structure, social beliefs and human nature."

"Freedom rests on ethical decisions. But the political sphere deals with power. ...Individually, power may well be the goal of personal ambition. But socially it is a servant; its organization is only a means to a social end. ...[P]ower distributes rank and determines relations within society; it is a means of internal organization. But the end of society is always an ethical purpose."

"The political and social conclusion from the freedom of the individual is self-government, self-government as a right and as a duty of the individual. If there is no individual decision in self-government, it is only a sham. But it is just as much a sham and a camouflage for tyranny if there is no individual responsibility. There must be active, responsible, and spontaneous participation of the individual in government as his government, in its decisions as his decisions, in its burdens as his burdens. Political freedom is neither easy nor automatic, neither pleasant nor secure. It is the responsibility of the individual for the decisions of society as if they were his own decisions—as in moral truth and accountability they are."

"Unless we realize that the essence of Nazism is also an attempt to solve a universal problem of Western civilization - that of the industrial society - and that the basic principles on which the Nazis base this attempt are also in no way confined to Germany, we do not know what we fight for or what we fight against... The war is being fought for the structure of industrial society--its basic principles, its purposes, and its institutions."

"We have only one alternative: either to build a functioning industrial society or see freedom itself disappear in anarchy and tyranny."

"Unless the power of the corporation can be organized on an accepted principle of legitimacy, it will... be taken over by a Central government..."

"In the modern corporation the decisive power, that of the managers, is derived from no one but the managers themselves controlled by nobody and nothing and responsible to no one. It is in the most literal sense unfounded, unjustified, uncontrolled and irresponsible power."

"No society can function as a society, unless it gives the individual member social status and function, and unless the decisive social power is legitimate."

"It is improper, to expressly pursue the Urlinie in performance and to single out its tones...for the purpose of communicating the Urlinie to the listener." Rather, "for the performer, the Urlinie provides, first of all, a sense of direction. It serves a somewhat equivalent function to that which a road map serves for a mountain climber."

"Music was destined to reach its culmination in the likeness of itself."

"Love at first sight is a revival of an infantile impression. The first love object reappears in a different disguise."

"Many an attack of depression is nothing but the expression of regret at having to be virtuous."

"In reality, we are still children. We want to find a playmate for our thoughts and feelings."

"Anxiety is fear of one's self."

"We had many interesting conversations and he introduced me to his young wife. He confided to me that he had married her because she was a fanatical atheist. Atheism was the main topic of their conversations. Such fervid atheism is usually a screen for repressed religion. The truly convinced atheist does not emphasize his atheism. He does not talk about it and is careful to avoid blasphemies. The man was interested in dreams and each morning he related several of his dreams. They were full of religious symbols. I was cautious not to reveal to him the meaning of his dreams; such off-hand analyses are always dangerous.... The banker did not want to be disturbed in his supposed atheism.... His atheism was a reaction formation established upon an ineradicable religious belief."

"An intense, unyielding stubbornness hides beneath an apparent obedience (the patient brings a vast number of dreams; his associations become endless; he produces an inexhaustible number of recollections, which seem to him very important but are actually of little moment; or he goes off upon some byroad suggested by the analyst and leads the latter into a blind alley). The child manifests the same reactions of defiance and obedience. The child, too, can hide his stubbornness behind an excessive docility (the parent's command: You must be industrious. Industry may become a mania so that the child neither goes out nor has time to sleep). Obedience is the giving up of the resistance; obstinacy the setting up of fresh resistances. This resistance is externally active. We have in recent years had sufficient opportunity to observe the law of resistance (the passive resistance). Activity and defiance show great differences. Defiance is the reaction against activity (aggression) of the environment. It may then manifest itself actively or passively and stands in the service of the defensive tendency of the ego. Every resistance reveals the ego (one's own) in conflict with another."

"Experience shows that this transference very soon becomes the source of resistance. Love is only a seeking for love in return, Do, ut des [I give, that thou shalt give]. If the patient notices that love is not given in return or that it has not reached that degree which he expected, defiance enters in place of the love, which in turn manifests itself as active resistance."

"People who do not understand themselves have a craving for understanding — a thing which is rather surmised and never spoken than known and clothed in words."

"Candor is always a double-edged sword; it may heal or it may separate."

"The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one."

"Many times I had spoken about "mental bipolarity" and proved that our affects are bipolar. Desire and disgust, love and hate, will-to-power and will-to-submission, are composed of negative and positive parts like the current of electricity. My contention was that any human affect has its own counterpart. Later Bleuler described this fact as "ambivalence," a term that was accepted by everybody, whereas previously they had laughed at my discovery, and given me the nickname "Stekel with his Bipolarity"."

"The student of psychoanalysis can see in Stekel's notes how many of his own complexes remained obscure to him, can detect his unresolved narcissism, his overcompensated feelings of inadequacy; will smile when he reads that the man who was a master in ferreting out other people's repressions believed that he had hardly any himself."

"Stekel enthusiastically cooperated with Freud in what could be called a symbiotic or antagonistic relationship and was driven out of the psychoanalytic community when he began to question the fundamental inequality of their respective roles."

"Truth is not always the best basis for happiness. There are certain lies which may constitute a far better and more secure foundation of happiness. There are people who perish when their eyes are opened."

"Magnify the divine mystery and the holiness of mankind."

"For those who believe, no explanation is necessary; for those who do not believe, no explanation is possible."

"Happiness is … the grace of being permitted to unfold … all the spiritual powers planted within us."

"Zwischen zu früh und zu spät, liegt immer nur ein Augenblick."

"That's how it always was:/growing among the columns of poetry./Big brother, it was no pleasure, no."