“We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.”

— Sigmund Freud , book Civilization and Its Discontents

Source: Civilization and Its Discontents

Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Sigmund Freud 147

Austrian neurologist known as the founding father of psycho… 1856–1939

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“Everyone can see that philosophy can have her belief in a millennium, but her millennarianism is not Utopian, since the Idea can help, though only from afar, to bring the millennium to pass. The only question is: Does Nature reveal anything of a path to this end? And I say: She reveals something, but very little. This great revolution seems to require so long for its completion that the short period during which humanity has been following this course permits us to determine its path and the relation of the parts to the whole with as little certainty as we can determine, from all previous astronomical observation, the path of the sun and his host of satellites among the fixed stars. Yet, on the fundamental premise of the systematic structure of the cosmos and from the little that has been observed, we can confidently infer the reality of such a revolution.
Moreover, human nature is so constituted that we cannot be indifferent to the most remote epoch our race may come to, if only we may expect it with certainty. Such indifference is even less possible for us, since it seems that our own intelligent action may hasten this happy time for our posterity. For that reason, even faint indications of approach to it are very important to us.”

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“Now just as the historical gives occasion for the contemporary to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself, since otherwise we speak Socratically, so the testimony of contemporaries gives occasion for each successor to become a disciple, but only it must be noted through receiving the condition from the God himself.”

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Source: 1840s, Philosophical Fragments (1844), p. 75

“We are so constituted that we can gain intense pleasure only from the contrast, and only very little from the condition itself.”

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Sigmund Freud 147

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