"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by idiots."
— Sigmund Freud
Before You Diagnose Yourself With Depression
Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by idiots.
About this quote
This quote is almost certainly not by Sigmund Freud. It does not appear in any of his published works or collected letters, and the style is inconsistent with his writing. Quote investigator research has traced it to a 2004 internet posting with no credible source cited. The saying has been assigned to Freud perhaps because of the clinical framing ("diagnose") and the reference to self-esteem, but it should be treated as an internet-era misattribution rather than a genuine Freudian remark.
Source
Widely attributed to Freud