Erich Fromm
Humanistic psychoanalyst, The Art of Loving
Most quoted
"Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life force as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions."
— from The Sane Society, 1955
"Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life as an investment which must bring him a maximum profit under existing market conditions."
— from The Sane Society, 1955
"The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent."
— from The Art of Loving, 1956
All quotes by Erich Fromm (268)
Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.
The aim of life is to live it intensely, to be fully born, to be fully awake.
Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose—and commit myself to—what is best for me.
The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.
The marketing character is willing to do anything to be accepted, and his sense of self is derived from what others think of him.
The need to be related to the world, to feel at home in it, is as imperative as the need for physical survival.
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
In the act of loving, I am one with All, and yet I am myself, a unique, separate, limited, mortal human being.
The more we gain control over nature, the more we need to gain control over ourselves.
The normal way of overcoming alienation is to become so absorbed in the routine of living that the question of alienation cannot arise.
Joy is the concomitant of productive activity. It is not a 'peak experience' which culminates and ends, but rather a plateau, a feeling state that accompanies the productive expression of one's essential human faculties.
The history of man is a graveyard of great cultures that came to catastrophic ends because of their incapacity for planned, rational, voluntary reaction to challenge.
The fear of freedom makes people afraid of the very things they most desire.
The truly educated person is not the one who knows most, but the one who is most capable of giving birth to new ideas and creating new things.
If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.
Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.
The most widespread misunderstanding is that 'giving' means 'giving up' something, being deprived of, sacrificing.
The human situation cannot be solved by returning to animal existence.
The 'having' mode of existence is centered on property and profit, while the 'being' mode is rooted in love and the pleasure of sharing.
Contemporaries of Erich Fromm
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Erich Fromm (1900–1980).