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Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.

Wilhelm Reich

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Wilhelm Reich
Age: 60 †
Born: 1897
Born: March 24
Died: 1957
Died: November 3
Academic
Philosopher
Psychiatrist
Psychoanalyst
Sex Educator
Writer
Theory
Space
Living
Foothold
Contrived
Phenomena
Scientific
Chaos

More quotes by Wilhelm Reich

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A living creature develops a destructive impulse when it wants to destroy a source of danger... The original motive is not pleasure in destruction... I destroy in a dangerous situation because I want to live and do not want to have any anxiety. In short, the impulse to destroy serves a primary biological will to live.
Wilhelm Reich
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You think the end justifies the means, however vile. I tell you: the end is the means by which you achieve it. Today's step is tomorrow's life. Great ends cannot be attained by base means. You've proved that in all your social upheavals. The meanness and inhumanity of the means make you mean and inhuman and make the end unattainable.
Wilhelm Reich
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The fact that Hitler was a political genius unmasks the nature of politics in general as no other fact can.
Wilhelm Reich
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Revolutionary practice in any field of human existence develops by itself if one comprehends the contradictions in every new process it consists in siding with those forces which act in the direction of progressive development.
Wilhelm Reich
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Unless we proceed cautiously, there might well arise a few generations of mystics who conceive of the orgone metaphysically, divorced from non-living nature and who do not comprehend it from the standpoint of natural science. And it seems to me that we have more than enough mysticism as it is.
Wilhelm Reich
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In brief, the goal of sexual suppression is that of producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. . . The formation of the authoritarian structure takes place through the anchoring of sexual inhibition and sexual anxiety.
Wilhelm Reich
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Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
Wilhelm Reich
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The few bad poems which occasionally are created during abstinence are of no great interest.
Wilhelm Reich
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The question of how and why the encrustations and rigidifications of human emotional life are brought about led directly into the realm of vegetative life.
Wilhelm Reich
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I know that what you call 'God' really exists, but not in the form you think God is primal cosmic energy, the love in your body, your integrity, and your perception of the nature in you and outside of you.
Wilhelm Reich
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Your liberators tell you that that your suppressors are Wilhelm, Nikolaus, Pope Gregory the Twenty Eighth, Morgan, Krupp or Ford. And your liberators are called Mussolini, Napoleon, Hitler and Stalin. I tell you: Only you yourself can be your liberator!
Wilhelm Reich
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Full sexual consciousness and a natural regulation of sexual life mean the end of mystical feelings of any kind. In other words, natural sexuality is the deadly enemy of mystical religion. The church, by making the fight over sexuality the center of its dogmas and of its influence over the masses, confirms this concept.
Wilhelm Reich
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The fact that political ideologies are tangible realities is not a proof of their vitally necessary character. The bubonic plague was an extraordinarily powerful social reality, but no one would have regarded it as vitally necessary.
Wilhelm Reich
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Follow the voice of your heart, even if it leads you off the path of timid souls. Do not become hard and embittered, even if life tortures you at times. There is only one thing that counts: to live one's life well and happily.
Wilhelm Reich
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People should be _very_ careful when choosing the future fathers and mothers of their children. For that reason alone, it is extremely mean to demand a marriage certificate for life, just for one night of embracement.
Wilhelm Reich
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MAN IS FUNDAMENTALLY AN ANIMAL. Animals, as distinct from man, are not machine-like, not sadistic their societies, within the same species, are incomparably more peaceful than those of man. The basic question, then is: What has made the animal, man, degenerate into a machine?
Wilhelm Reich
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Mistaking insolence for freedom has always been the hallmark of the slave.
Wilhelm Reich
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You have no sense of your true duty, which is to be a man and preserve humanity. You imitate wise men so badly and bandits so well. Your movies and radio programs are full of murder.
Wilhelm Reich
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No man-made law ever, no matter whether derived from the past or projected onto a distant, unforeseeable future, can or should ever be empowered to claim that it is greater than the Natural Law from which it stems and to which it must inevitably return in the eternal rhythm of creation and decline of all things natural.
Wilhelm Reich
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Only one thing matters: live a good, happy life. Do your heart's bidding, even when it leads you on paths that timid souls would avoid. Even when life is a torment, don't let it harden you.
Wilhelm Reich