Anna Freud quotes

Anna Freud was an Austrian psychologist and pioneer in the field of child psychoanalysis. Her work significantly advanced the understanding of child development and defense mechanisms. She is remembered as a key figure who shaped modern psychoanalytic theory and practice. Here are 27 of her quotes:

If some longing goes unmet, don't be astonished. We call that Life.

Anna Freud

We are imprisoned in the realm of life, like a sailor on his tiny boat, on an infinite ocean.

Anna Freud

Why do we go around acting as though everything was friendship and reliability when basically everything everywhere is full of sudden hate and ugliness?

Anna Freud

Creative minds have always been known to survive any kind of bad training.

Anna Freud

We live trapped, between the churned-up and examined past and a future that waits for our work.

Anna Freud

We are aware only of the empty space in the forest, which only yesterday was filled with trees.

Anna Freud

In our dreams we can have our eggs cooked exactly how we want them, but we can't eat them.

Anna Freud

Who promised you that only for joy were you brought to this earth?

Anna Freud

Everything becomes so problematic because of basic faults: from a discontent with myself.

Anna Freud

Create around one at least a small circle where matters are arranged as one wants them to be.

Anna Freud

What I have always wanted for myself is much more primitive. It is probably nothing more than the affection of the people with whom I am in contact, and their good opinion of me.

Anna Freud

Sometimes the most beautiful thing is precisely the one that comes unexpectedly and unearned.

Anna Freud

Sometimes the most beautiful thing is precisely the one that comes unexpectedly and unearned, hence something given truly as a present.

Anna Freud

Things are not as we would like them to be. There is only one way to deal with it, namely to try and be all right oneself.

Anna Freud

It is only when parental feelings are ineffective or too ambivalent or when the mother's emotions are temporarily engaged elsewhere that children feel lost.

Anna Freud

Everyone here says in a surprised manner that I have grown... they are so stupid and do not notice that I am standing up straighter!

Anna Freud

How one can live without being able to judge oneself, criticize what one has accomplished, and still enjoy what one does, is unimaginable to me.

Anna Freud

I am no longer afraid to say anything.

Anna Freud

How can one know anything at all about people?

Anna Freud

I am glad that I do not have any children.

Anna Freud

My different personalities leave me in peace now.

Anna Freud

Papa continually emphasizes how much remains unexplained. With the other psychoanalytic writers, everything is always so known and fixed.

Anna Freud