Erich Fromm Quotes

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual va...

The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism. The narcissistic orientation is one in which one experiences as real only that which exists within oneself, while...

The frightened individual seeks for somebody or something to tie his self to; he cannot bear to be his own individual self any longer, and he tries frantically to get rid of it and to feel security ag...

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

There were always men who looked beyond the dimensions of their own society- and while they may have been called fools or criminals in their time they are the roster of great men as far as the record...

The faculty to think objectively is ; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of . To be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has e...

What holds true for the individual holds true for a society. It is never static; if it does not grow, it decays; if it does not transcend the status quo for the better, it changes for the worse. Often...

Der Anpassungstheorie liegen folgende Annahmen zugrunde: 1. Jede Gesellschaft als soche ist normal; 2. seelisch krann ist, wer von dem von der Gesellschaft favorisierten Persönlichkeitstyp abweicht; 3...

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that man may become robots.

What kind of men, then, does our society need? What is the social character suited to twentieth century Capitalism? It needs men who co-operate smoothly in large groups; who want to consume more and m...

Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?

Independence is not achieved simply by not obeying mother, father, state, and the like. Independence is not the same as disobedience. Independence is possible only if, and according to the degree to w...

Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody s...

Both the mentally healthy and the neurotic are driven by the need to find an answer [to the problem of human existence], the only difference being that one answer corresponds more to the total needs o...

The pathology of normalcy rarely deteriorates to graver forms of mental illness because society produces the antidote against such deterioration. When pathological processes become socially patterned,...

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'

We are a society of notoriously unhappy people: lonely, anxious, depressed, destructive, dependent — people who are glad when we have killed the time we are trying so hard to save.

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

This popular picture of Marx's 'materialism' - his anti-spiritual tendency, his wish for uniformity and subordination - is utterly false. Marx's aim was that of the spiritual emancipation of man, of h...

For despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet falling bound to come and quickly go away.