Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Theodor Reik

Austrian-born American Psychologist, Psychoanalyst and Writer

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

"The last taboo of mankind, avoiding forbidden and dangerous thoughts, must be removed. There are no illegitimate thoughts."

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

"The small share of happiness attainable by man exists only insofar as he is able to cease to think of himself."

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

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

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

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

"Even the wisest men make fools of themselves about women, and even the most foolish women are wise about men."

"He [Freud] often said three things were impossible to fulfill completely; healing, education, governing. He limited his goals in analytic treatment to brining the patient to the point where he could work for a living and learn to love."

"No person loving or admiring himself is alone."

"Romance fails us and so do friendships, but the relationship of parent and child, less noisy than all others, remains indelible and indestructible, the strongest relationship on earth."

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

"The repressed memory is like a noisy intruder being thrown out of the concert hall. You can throw him out, but he will bang on the door and continue to disturb the concert. The analyst opens the door and says, If you promise to behave yourself, you can come back in."

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

"There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words: love and achievement. In order to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy. The secret of human happiness is not in self-seeking but in self-forgetting."

"There is a latent fear among women appreciate men as a female as an individual. They fear that desires not as a particular woman, but as a female closest to its disposal."

"To be loved means to be you unique value, and to have forgiveness. Being wanted and loved, lived individual sense of guilt, and reaffirms that we are not abandoned and alone or lying us aside."

"In order to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy ... The secret of human happiness is not in self-seeking but in self-forgetting."

"Love is an attempt to change a piece of the dream-world into reality."

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

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

"We must all doubt sometimes of being loved. We are all naked under our clothes, and we have reasons to believe that our bodies bare unattractive. We know its flaws, hidden weakness or Bakaha Repellents. But we also naked under the masks we wear in front of others and to ourselves. We know in our consciousness, not that noble, but also we Daon, not that kind, but also that we are tough, as we know in our consciousness a lot of unpleasant truths about ourselves. The feeling of guilt limits of self-confidence, which justifies our suspicions that we are not loved. When we seek love, while we want to be wanted and admired and celebrate, we do it mainly because we loved means forgiveness… in our thoughts."

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

"If there be anything that can be called genius, it consists chiefly in ability to give that attention to a subject which keeps it steadily in the mind, till we have surveyed it accurately on all sides."