Character Analysis Quotes

“... apart from its function as communication, human language also often functions as a defense. The spoken word conceals the expressive language of the biological core. In many cases, the function of speech has deteriorated to such a degree that the words express nothing whatever and merely represent a continuous, hollow activity on the part of the musculature of the neck and the organs of speech. On the basis of repeated experiences, it is my opinion that in many psychoanalyses which have gone on for years the treatment has become stuck in this pathological use of language. This clinical experience can, indeed has to be applied to the social sphere. Endless numbers of speeches, publications, political debates do not have the function of getting at the root of important questions of life but of drowning them in verbiage.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis

“Most of what official adolescent psychology considers the "characteristics of puberty," turn out in character-analytic work to be the artificially produced effect of obstructed natural sexuality. This holds true for daydreaming as well as for inferiority feelings.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis

“Love, work and knowledge are the wellsprings of our life. They should also govern it. WILHELM REICH”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis: Third, Enlarged Edition

“This association of the idea of the orgasm and the idea of dying is a universal one. On the basis of these typical clinical examples, we arrive at the following conclusion: the striving after non-existence, nirvana, death, is identical with the striving after orgastic release, i.e., the most essential experience of the living organism. Thus, an idea of death stemming from the actual demise of the organism does not and cannot exist, because an idea can reflect only what has already been experienced. No one, however, has ever experienced his or her own death.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis

“On the basis of wide clinical experiences, I contend that it is a matter of love in only a few cases when man and woman in our civilization engage in the sexual act. The rage which usurps the initial love impulses, hate, and sadistic emotion are all part and parcel of modern man's contempt for sex. I am not speaking of the clear cases in which the sexual act is performed for profit or subsistence. I am speaking of the majority of people of all social strata. It is on the basis of these clinical findings that the Latin saying, "Omne animal post coitum triste?' has become a scientific axiom. There is only one error in this statement: man ascribes his own disappointment to the animal.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis

“Most people are actually far less potent than they imagine themselves in their dreams, and
are endowed with far greater qualities and capacities than they translate into action.”
― Wilhelm Reich, Character Analysis

“It would not bother me if another scientist wanted to reduce my thirst for knowledge to the biological function of a puppy who goes around sniffing at everything. Indeed, it would make me happy to be biologically compared to a lively and lovable puppy.”
― wilhelm reich, Character Analysis