Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility, and most people are frightened of responsibility.

Although widely attributed to Freud, this aphorism is best read as a modern, psycho-social observation about the ambivalence people feel toward autonomy. “Freedom” here is not merely political liberty but the psychological burden of self-determination: choosing, acting, and owning consequences without the shelter of external authority. The line suggests that many prefer the security of rules, leaders, or institutions because these can diffuse guilt and anxiety. In psychoanalytic terms, it aligns loosely with ideas about dependence, fear of uncertainty, and the wish to escape inner conflict by submitting to an external order—yet the quote’s neat formulation is more characteristic of later popularizations than Freud’s own style.