Tuesday 13 December 2016

Reich quotes


Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena.
SSWILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm
If the psychic energies of the average mass of people watching a football game or a musical comedy could be diverted into the rational channels of a freedom movement, they would be invincible.
WILHELM REICH, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
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, response to FDA complaint, Feb. 22, 1954
We live in a community of people not so that we can suppress and dominate eachother or make each other miserable but so that we can better and more reliably satisfy all life's healthy needs.
WILHELM REICH, Children of the Future
Only the liberation of the natural capacity for love in human beings can master their sadistic destructiveness.
WILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm
The Little Man does not know that he is little, and he is afraid of knowing it. He covers up his smallness and narrowness with illusions of strength and greatness.
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
The suppression of natural sexual gratification leads to various kinds of substitute gratifications. Natural aggression, for example, becomes brutal sadism which then is an essential mass-psychological factor in imperialistic wars.
WILHELM REICH, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
It is sexual energy which governs the structure of human feeling and thinking.
WILHELM REICH, The Sexual Revolution
Psychic health depends on orgastic potency, i.e., upon the degree to which one can surrender to and experience the climax of excitation in the natural sexual act.... Psychic illnesses are the result of a disturbance of the natural capacity for love.
WILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm
And the truth must finally lie in that which every oppressed individual feels within himself but hasn't the courage to express.
WILHELM REICH, Beyond Psychology: Letters and Journals, 1934-1939
For centuries great, brave, lonely men have been telling you what to do. Time and again you have corrupted, diminished and demolished their teachings; time and again you have been captivated by their weakest points, taken not the great truth, but some trifling error as your guiding principal.
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
Because you have no memory for things that happened ten or twenty years ago, you're still mouthing the same nonsense as two thousand years ago. Worse, you cling with might and main to such absurdities as 'race,' 'class,' 'nation,' and the obligation to observe a religion and repress your love.
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
You are different from the really great man in only one thing: The great man, at one time, also was a very little man, but he developed one important ability: he learned to see where he was small in his thinking, and actions. Under the pressure of some task which was dear to him he learned better and better to sense the threat that comes from his smallness and pettiness. The great man, then, knows when and in what he is a little man.
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
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, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Love, work and knowledge are the well-springs of our life. They should also govern it.
WILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm
Mistaking insolence for freedom has always been the hallmark of the slave.
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of all irrational reactions of the average human character.
WILHELM REICH, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.
WILHELM REICH, attributed, Philosophy: An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (Christian, 2005)
Man's right to know, to learn, to inquire, to make bona fide errors, to investigate human emotions must, by all means, be safe, if the word FREEDOM should ever be more than an empty political slogan.
WILHELM REICH, response to FDA complaint, Feb. 22, 1954
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, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
I consider it an error in scientific communication that, most of the time, merely the polished and flawless results of natural research are displayed, as in an art show. And exhibit of the finished product alone has many drawbacks and dangers for both its creator and its users. The creator of the product will be only too ready to demonstrate perfection and flawlessness while concealing gaps, uncertainties and discordant contradictions of his insight into nature. He thus belittles the meaning of the real process of natural research. The user of the product will not appreciate the rigorous demands made on the natural scientist when the latter has to reveal and describe the secrets of nature in a practical way. He will never learn to think for himself and to cope by himself.
WILHELM REICH, Ether, God and Devil
See yourself as you really are. Listen to what none of your leaders and representatives dares tell you: You are a "little, common man." Understand the double meaning of these words: "little" and "common." Don't run. Have the courage to look at yourself!
WILHELM REICH, Listen, Little Man!
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, Listen, Little Man!
Not until man is willing to recognize his animal nature — in the good sense of the word — will he create genuine culture.
WILHELM REICH, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
Rooting in work is crucial to any accomplishment. Rooting in mere enthusiasm will in the long run force illusory measures to keep the fires of empty enthusiasm going. And this makes politics and politicians.
WILHELM REICH, writings, Apr. 19, 1951
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, The Mass Psychology of Fascism
The pleasure of living and the pleasure of the orgasm are identical.
WILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm
Every seemingly arbitrary destructive action is a reaction of the organism to the frustration of a gratification of a vital need, especially of a sexual need.

WILHELM REICH, The Function of the Orgasm

No comments:

Post a Comment