I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, n... — Sigmund Freud

I have found little that is 'good' about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

Author: Sigmund Freud

Insight: There's something almost refreshing about Freud's cynicism here, mostly because most of us think it privately but never say it. We've all had the experience of watching someone behave badly, then watching them rationalize it perfectly, then watching everyone else pretend not to notice. The gap between how people present themselves and how they actually operate is real and worth acknowledging. But here's where Freud might be onto something important without quite realizing it: maybe the fact that we can't say these things aloud is actually what prevents us from becoming as trash as we fear. The social pressure to maintain a decent facade, annoying as it is, might be doing crucial work. When we can't publicly voice our contempt for others, we stay a little kinder, a little more restrained. We catch ourselves. That unspoken rule keeps us from acting on our worst impulses the way we might if there were no social consequence. The real tension isn't between our hidden cynicism and our public virtue. It's that both are true at once. We're genuinely capable of pettiness and selfishness, and we're also capable of restraint because we know we're being watched—by others and by ourselves. Acknowledging the first part doesn't mean surrendering to it.

Source: Letter to Karl Abraham, February 7, 1908