And my interest in history was, and remains, very strong: what I wanted was to understand certain things better by understanding them psychoanalytically.
– Peter Gay
Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.
– Peter Gay
I am not comfortable with the life-against-death generalization that Freud makes; it strikes me as too convenient.
– Peter Gay
I decided that what I really wanted to do was to make my writing in history deeper, if that's the right word to use. And that is what I did.
– Peter Gay
My assumption is that fundamentally the picture of the human animal, as developed by Freud, is largely right.
– Peter Gay
My definition of modernism took a while to develop.
– Peter Gay
People seem to forget that one reason they are now thinking differently is Freud's legacy itself.
– Peter Gay
There is something very intriguing about, for example, the sense of accomplishment that a small child has, which you might be able to reduce to aggression and libido, but which might also have some independent existence.
– Peter Gay
To have a liberal temperament is a kind of psychological boon, To be able to understand that someone you disagree with is not just a terrible creature but somebody with whom you disagree.
– Peter Gay
What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.