The word "hysteria" is from the Greek word "hysteron", meaning "womb". To this day, doctors believe the disease only exists in women if that is, they admit its existence at all. There are many who would deny it a place in the pages of the Encyclopedia Medica.
Frau So far away, Paris. A day, a night and a day.
If you are overcome by grief, you shed tears. Angry, you strike a blow. Frightened, you run. The emotion aroused in you is discharged in physical action. But, what happens if the emotion is dammed up, strangulated? There's fire in the fireplace, but the chimney is blocked. The fire doesn't go out. It smolders, and smoke fills the room, the entire house. And finally, it leaks out through a pantry window. A morbid symptom is only emotional energy coming out the wrong place.
You would bring the light of understanding into their poor benighted souls. And the evil spirits will fly away when the cock crows.
Leave to the night what belongs to the night.
I Know why you're attracted by other people's madness, because it makes you forget your own.
My life has been a sham. I misused my talents, hiding the truth even from myself. I suppressed my real being. The result, I'm dying in a state of pride and ignorance. I don't know who I am. It's not I who lived my life, but another, the creation of my vanity. Break the silence. Do what you set out to do. Betray us. We need a traitor. Go to the heart of our darkness. Hunt out the dragon. Angels and saints slay dragons. I am neither.
If you lack the strength, make a pact with the Devil. What a splendid thing to descend to hell and light your torch from its fires?
"Know thyself." Two thousand years ago, these words were carved on the temple at Delphi. "Know thyself." They're the beginning of wisdom. In them, lies the single hope of victory over man's oldest enemy: His vanity. This knowledge is how within our grasp. Will we use it? Let us hope.
Since ancient times, there have been three great changes in man's idea of himself. Three major blows dealt us in our vanity.
Before Copernicus, we thought we were the center of the universe, that all the heavenly bodies revolved around our Earth. But the great astronomer shattered that conceit, and we were forced to admit our planet is but one of many which swing around the Sun. That there are other systems beyond our solar system in myriad worlds.
Before Charles Darwin, man believed he was a species unto himself, separate and apart from the animal kingdom. But the great biologist made us see that our physical organism is the product of a vast evolutionary process whose laws are no different for us than for any other form of animal life.
Before Sigmund Freud, man believed that what he said and did were the products of his conscious will alone. But the great psychologist, demonstrated the existence of another part of our mind. Which functions in darkest secrecy and can even rule our lives.