Erich Fromm Quotes

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

Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need you because I love you.
- Erich Fromm

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

Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
- Erich Fromm

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
- Erich Fromm

A state of total awakeness. In this state one is not only aware of that which one needs to be aware of in order to survive or to satisfy passionate goals, one is aware of oneself and of the world (people and nature) around one. One sees, not opaquely but clearly, the surface together with its roots. The world becomes fully real; every detail and the details in their configuration and structure become a meaningful unit.
- Erich Fromm

All men are in need of help and depend on one another. Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual.
- Erich Fromm

Unless he belonged somewhere, unless his life had some meaning and direction, he would feel like a particle of dust and be overcome by his individual insignificance.
- Erich Fromm

Robots do not rebel.
- Erich Fromm

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
- Erich Fromm

Modern man is starved for life.
- Erich Fromm

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves.
- Erich Fromm

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

Modern political democracy, if it restricts itself to the purely political sphere, cannot sufficiently counteract the results of the economic insignificance of the average individual. But purely economic concepts like socialization.
- Erich Fromm

Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness.
- Erich Fromm

Human nature, though being the product of historical evolution, has certain inherent mechanisms and laws, to discover which is the task of psychology.
- Erich Fromm

Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.
- Erich Fromm

I shall become a master in this art only after a great deal of practice.
- Erich Fromm