― Lou Andreas-Salomé
“The main thing is that life-faith is essentially and vitally present, by means of which we survive.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters
“If you have no more happiness to give:
Give me your pain.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé
“Should we not be moved rather than chilled by the knowledge that he might have attained his greatness only through his frailties?”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters
“The main thing is that life-faith is essentially and vitally present, by means of which we survive.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters
“Whoever reaches into a rosebush may seize a handful of flowers; but no matter how many one holds, it's only a small portion of the whole. Nevertheless, a handful is enough to experience the nature of the flowers. Only if we refuse to reach into the bush, because we can't possibly seize all the flowers at once, or if we spread out our handful of roses as if it were the whole of the bush itself -- only then does it bloom apart from us, unknown to us, and we are left alone.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé
“I do not doubt that mankind will survive even this war, but I know for certain that for me and my contemporaries the world will never again be a happy place. It is too hideous. And the saddest thing about it is that it is exactly the way that we should have expected people to behave from our knowledge of psycho-analysis. Because of this attitude to mankind I have never been able to agree with your blithe optimism. My secret conclusion has always been: since we can only regard the highest present civilization as burdened with an enormous hypocrisy, it follows that we are organically unfitted for it. We have to abdicate, and the Great Unknown, He or It, lurking behind Fate will someday repeat this experiment with another race.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters
“At one point it touches both your and my attitude to the distress of our time and what you called my optimism, which now seems so sadly shipwrecked. And yet I believe that behind every individual human activities and the territory which can be reached through psycho-analysis there lies an abyss where the most valuable and nastiest impulses inextricably condition each other and render impossible any final judgment. This remarkable mixture remains a fact not only for the once surmounted stage of earliest development (of the race as well as of the individual), but ever anew and for everyone this remarkable unity is a fact — calculated to cast down the arrogant, but also to exalt the lowly of heart. It is true that this makes no difference to our loathing for or our delight in a particular piece of human conduct, and a time like the present can consequently deal a death-blow to joy and confidence; but nevertheless one knows from oneself that one can only go on living in such an ultimate faith, and the same ought to apply to everyone else. Ought to: but of course it doesn’t, not in these days. However the fact that it ought to … that alone helps me a little.”
― Lou Andreas-Salomé, Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters
