The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'
Attributed toSigmund Freud1856–1939 · Austrian neurologist & founder of psychoanalysis
Credited to Freud on the authority of his official biographer, Ernest Jones, who reports it as something Freud “said once to Marie Bonaparte.” It appears in no work Freud published; the English sentence everyone quotes is Jones’s, printed in Volume 2 of his Freud biography in 1955 — years after Freud’s death in 1939. Nothing contradicts it, but no manuscript, letter or published page in Freud’s own hand carries this wording.
“The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'” attributed to Sigmund Freud (1856–1939). Not from Freud's own published writing: reported as a remark made to Marie Bonaparte in Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1955), pt. 3, chap. 16, p. 421. Verified via Quotle.info
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In context
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Provenance
Where the sentence actually appears
Recorded in
The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, Vol. 2
Recorded by
Ernest Jones (1879–1958), Freud’s official biographer
Published
1955 — Basic Books, New York; Pt. 3, Ch. 16, p. 421
German form
“Was will das Weib?” (as recorded by Wikiquote)
[Freud] said once to Marie Bonaparte: ‘The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is “What does a woman want?”’
Secondhand report
As rendered by Wikiquote ↗, citing Jones, Vol. 2, Pt. 3, Ch. 16, p. 421. The bracketed name is Wikiquote’s clarification. Note the framing: Jones reports a spoken remark, not a written one.
Wikiquote ↗ carries the quote under “Attributed from posthumous publications” — not among its sourced quotations — citing Ernest Jones, Sigmund Freud: Life and Work (Hogarth Press, 1953 — the UK printing), Vol. 2, Pt. 3, Ch. 16, p. 421, and giving the German as “Was will das Weib?”
The reporter is no bystander: Ernest Jones ↗ was a Welsh neurologist and analyst who met Freud in 1908, remained a lifelong friend and colleague, and became his official biographer, publishing the three volumes between 1953 and 1957.
The volume in question is dated 1955, not 1953: the Internet Archive’s scan of Volume 2 ↗ is catalogued to Basic Books, Inc., 1955, matching the 1953 / 1955 / 1957 sequence recorded for the three volumes.
Marie Bonaparte ↗ (1882–1962), Princess of Greece and Denmark, consulted Freud in 1925 and became a close friend and colleague; Wikipedia states it was to her that Freud made the remark. Jones gives no date in the passage as Wikiquote reproduces it; Wikiquote separately dates the remark to a psychoanalytic session on 8 December 1925 on the authority of Bonaparte’s diary, without citing it.
This is a rights question about the text you are reading, not about Freud. The English sentence in circulation was written by Ernest Jones and first published in Volume 2 of The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud in 1955 — well after the 1931 US public-domain cutoff — so the wording is in copyright, with rights resting in Jones’s estate and his publishers. Because no pre-1931 Freud publication carrying this sentence has ever been identified, there is no public-domain original to fall back on.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
What gets said about this quote that the sources do not support
The attribution to Freud itself is credible. What travels with it — the medium, the provenance, the implied primary source — usually is not.
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Medium“In a letter to Marie Bonaparte” Common error
The line is routinely introduced as coming from a letter. The source says otherwise: Jones writes that Freud “said once to Marie Bonaparte”, and Wikipedia likewise describes it as something Freud remarked to her. See the Wikiquote entry ↗. No letter carrying this sentence has been produced.
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WordingErnest Jones, not Freud Rendering
Freud lectured and wrote in German. The polished English sentence in circulation is his biographer’s prose; Wikiquote records the underlying German question as Was will das Weib? — Wikiquote, Sigmund Freud ↗. Quoting the English as Freud’s exact words overstates what the record supports.
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SourceFreud’s published works Not found there
The sentence is in none of them. Freud’s actual published treatment of the question is Lecture XXXIII, “Femininity” (1933), which speaks of people having knocked their heads against the riddle of the nature of femininity ↗ — and contains neither “what does a woman want” nor “thirty years of research into the feminine soul.”
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DateThe widely copied “1953” Citation slip
Wikiquote cites the UK Hogarth Press printing and dates it 1953, and that date is copied across the web. 1953 is when the first volume appeared; the volume containing this passage is Volume 2, catalogued as Basic Books, 1955 ↗, with the three volumes published in 1953, 1955 and 1957. The page number survives the switch of edition: Wikipedia’s Marie Bonaparte article ↗ independently cites the passage as Jones, vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1955), p. 421.
✓Best available reading: Freud very likely said something to this effect to Marie Bonaparte, and the report comes from an exceptionally well-placed witness — but the quotable English sentence is Ernest Jones’s, published in 1955, and it is filed by Wikiquote ↗ among attributions from posthumous publications rather than among sourced quotations.
Context
The most famous thing Freud said about women, he did not write
It is quoted as pure Freud — the founder of psychoanalysis conceding defeat, in his own voice, after decades of work. But the sentence in English was composed by a Welshman. Ernest Jones ↗ met Freud in 1908, became his official biographer, and published his three-volume life between 1953 and 1957. The remark surfaces in Volume 2, where Jones reports that Freud said it once to Marie Bonaparte ↗ — the great-grandniece of Napoleon, Princess of Greece and Denmark, who had consulted Freud in 1925 and became his close friend and colleague.
So what circulates is a biographer’s English rendering of a private conversation, published after the speaker was dead and unable to confirm or correct it. That does not make it false. Jones is about as well-placed a witness as exists. It does mean the line has no manuscript in Freud’s own hand behind it — which is worth knowing before you put it in quotation marks and hang a thesis on it. Wikiquote adds, without a citation of its own, that Marie Bonaparte’s diary confirms the attribution and dates the remark to their psychoanalytic session on 8 December 1925; we have not been able to check that against the diary.
A biographer’s sentence, reporting a conversation, printed after the speaker could no longer confirm it.
Read the full story
What Freud actually published on the theme. In Lecture XXXIII, “Femininity,” from the New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933), Freud tells his audience that throughout history people have knocked their heads against the riddle of the nature of femininity ↗, and closes by advising anyone who wants to know more to consult their own experience, or the poets, or to wait for better science. The sentiment is unmistakably the same. The famous wording is nowhere in it.
The German. Wikiquote records the German form of the question as Was will das Weib? — a phrasing that asks about woman in the abstract rather than about any particular woman, a nuance the smooth English version quietly loses.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1856–1939 · Austrian neurologist & founder of psychoanalysis
Born in Moravia and long resident in Vienna, Freud was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, the clinical method and theory of mind built on dialogue between patient and analyst. He treated the psychology of women as an unsolved problem for most of his career, devoting a whole late lecture — Femininity, in the New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (1933) — to what he called the riddle of the nature of femininity. That published lecture, not this famous sentence, is where his own words on the subject actually survive.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Best available source
Ernest Jones, The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud, vol. 2 (New York: Basic Books, 1955), pt. 3, chap. 16, 421. Reported there as a remark Freud made to Marie Bonaparte; the English wording is Jones's.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul, is 'What does a woman want?'’?” Last verified 7 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-great-question-that-has-never-been-answered-and-which-i/