The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best. – Paul Valéry, Tel Quel, 1943

If you cut a thing up, of course it will smell. Hence, nothing raises such an infernal stink, at last, as human psychology. – D.H. Lawrence, St.Mawr

A mistake which is commonly made about neurotics is to suppose that they are interesting. It is not interesting to be always unhappy, engrossed with oneself, malignant and ungrateful, and never quite in touch with reality. – Cyril Connolly, The Unquiet Grave

The aim of psychoanalysis is to relieve people of their neurotic unhappiness so that they can be normally unhappy. – Sigmund Freud, attributed