Peter Gay Quotes

What interests me, and has always interested me, has been modernism.

- Peter Gay

My definition of modernism took a while to develop.

- 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

My assumption is that fundamentally the picture of the human animal, as developed by Freud, is largely right.

- Peter Gay

People seem to forget that one reason they are now thinking differently is Freud's legacy itself.

- 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

Every historian has informally an anthropology, without ever using the word.

- Peter Gay

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