From Anthea Bell’s introduction to Freud’s A Case of Hysteria (Dora):
Not only are Freud’s writings beguiling in their construction, style, and rhetoric, but they contain many profound and searching reflections on human nature. Freud is compelling, for example, when he examines why people insist on making themselves unhappy, whether by clinging to the lost object or by getting trapped in the intertia of a painful but familiar rotuine. Such insights remain valid even after the rigid Freudian system that used to surround them has evaporated. Hence Freud remains as much worth reading as the philsoohper Schopenheaur, whom he himself read attentively, though only later in life. We no longer read Schopenhauer for his philosophy. His concept of the all-powerful Will is as imaginary as its descendant, the Freudian id. But as a stylist, a moralist, a sceptical commentator on human life, Schopenheaur remains invaluable, as does Freud.
Mark Carrigan 