You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Vienna IX, Berggasse 19
May 3, 1936
Dear Professor Einstein
You struggle in vain against my answering your charming letter.1 I really must tell you how delighted I am to learn of the change in your judgment, or at least a move in that direction. Of course I always knew that you admired me only “out of politeness,” and that you are convinced by very few of my assertions. But I have often asked myself what indeed there is to admire about them if they are not true—i.e., if they do not contain a high degree of truth. Incidentally, don't you think I should have been far better treated if my doctrines had incorporated a greater percentage of error and folly?
You are so much younger than I; and I may hope that by the time you have reached my age you will have become a disciple of mine. Since I shall not be here to learn of this, I am now anticipating the satisfaction. (You realize what I have in mind: “In proud fore-feeling of such lofty bliss I now enjoy,”2 etc.)
With warm devotion and unswerving admiration
Your
Sigm. Freud
For Freud's eightieth birthday.
Quotation from Goethe's Faust, II.