“Life, as we find it, is too hard for us; it brings us too many pains, disappointments and impossible tasks. In order to bear it we cannot dispense with palliative measures… There are perhaps three such measures: powerful deflections, which cause us to make light of our misery; substitutive satisfactions, which diminish it; and intoxicating substances, which make us insensible to it.”
- Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents
Although published in the early 1930’s, Freud identifies a number of issues in civilization/society that I still find to be relevant today. This book broadened my knowledge on many aspects of human life and I highly recommend it.
