65 Best Erich Fromm Quotes From The German Social Psychologist
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Erich Fromm was a well-known German social psychologist, sociologist, social philosopher and psychoanalyst.
His theory of personality revolves around two basic needs, the need for belonging, and the need for freedom. His belief resided in the notion that an individual's personality style was a result of dealing with isolation.
These Erich Fromm quotes may help you in feeling better, not just about humans, but also about the outside world. There are many Erich Fromm quotes in this article about the human experience, reason, loving someone else, faith, and the world. Here are the best quotes from Erich Fromm that may just make your day better!
If you liked these quotes, you must check out Sigmund Freud quotes and Alfred Adler quotes.
Best Erich Fromm Quotes
Here are some famous Erich Fromm quotes that you must read if you're a fan of the social psychologist.
1. "There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group."
- Erich Fromm.
2. "The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have."
- Erich Fromm.
3. "If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?"
- Erich Fromm.
4. "There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail."
- Erich Fromm.
5. "The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science."
- Erich Fromm.
6. "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"
- Erich Fromm.
7. "As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask."
- Erich Fromm.
8. "Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves."
- Erich Fromm.
9. "You have to stop in order to change direction."
- Erich Fromm.
10. "There is nothing of which we are more ashamed than of not being ourselves."
- Erich Fromm.
11. "There is undoubtedly a difference between people who manipulate other people and people who create things."
- Erich Fromm.
12."Ideas become powerful only if they appear in the flesh; an idea which does not lead to action by the individual and by groups remains at best a paragraph or a footnote in a book."
- Erich Fromm.
12. "Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers."
- Erich Fromm.
13. "Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines."
- Erich Fromm.
14. "All great art is revolutionary because it touches upon the reality of man and questions the reality of the various transitory forms of human society."
-Erich Fromm.
15. "Freedom does not mean license."
- Erich Fromm.
16. "Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties."
- Erich From
17. "The basic for any approach to self-transformation is an ever-increasing awareness of reality and the shedding of illusions."
- Erich Fromm.
18. "Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows 'what he wants,' while he actually wants what he is supposed to want."
- Erich Fromm.
19. "The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity."
- Erich Fromm.
20. "To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable."
- Erich Fromm.
21. "Many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity."
- Erich Fromm.
Erich Fromm Quotes About Human Nature And Psychology
These quotes by Erich Fromm talk about the experience of being sane, the nature of man, and human psychology which provides the reason why people do things.
22. "The person who is normal in terms of being well adapted is often less healthy than the neurotic person in terms of human values."
- Erich Fromm.
23. "Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance, albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true."
- Erich Fromm.
24. "The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane."
- Erich Fromm.
25. "A great number of our decisions are not really our own but are suggested to us from the outside."
- Erich Fromm.
26. "We are never free from two conflicting tendencies: one to emerge from the womb, from the animal form of existence into a more human existence, from bondage to freedom; another, to return to the womb, to nature, to certainty and security."
- Erich Fromm.
27. "Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture."
- Erich Fromm.
28. "When pathological processes become socially patterned, they lose their individual character. "
- Erich Fromm.
29. "Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either."
- Erich Fromm.
30. "If man cannot approve of himself because he fails in the task of living productively, he has to substitute approval by others for approval by himself."
- Erich Fromm.
31. "According to me [Sigmund ] Freud did not notice that the dream expresses the inner experiences in a symbolic form,resembling in that, poetry or other art forms."
- Erich Fromm.
32. "Human solidarity is the necessary condition for the unfolding of any one individual."
- Erich Fromm.
33. "We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them."
- Erich Fromm.
34. "The scars left from the child's defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis."
- Erich Fromm.
35. "The hoarders, who are anxiously worried about losing something, are, psychologically speaking, the poor impoverished people, regardless of how much they have."
- Erich Fromm.
36. "Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason."
- Erich Fromm.
Erich Fromm Quotes About Love
These quotes are about loving, being giving towards other people, and having faith in the ones you love. If you're looking for some Erich Fromm the art of loving quotes or some Erich Fromm escape from freedom quotes, then these quotes will give you the insight you want.
37. "Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love."
- Erich Fromm.
38. "Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise."
- Erich Fromm.
39. "Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination."
- Erich Fromm.
40. "Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love."
- Erich Fromm.
41. "Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'"
- Erich Fromm.
42. "Yet, most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty."
- Erich Fromm.
43. "In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."
- Erich Fromm.
44. "The main question is: 'Can I love?'"
- Erich Fromm.
45. "If I love the other person, I feel one with him or her, but with him as he is, not as I need him to be as an object for my use."
- Erich Fromm.
46. "I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me."
- Erich Fromm.
47. "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."
- Erich Fromm.
48. "Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort."
- Erich Fromm.
49. "Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love."
- Erich Fromm.
Erich Fromm Quotations About Life
Here are some Erich Fromm quotes that you cannot miss. We have faith in the notion that you will love these quotes.
50. "Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself."
- Erich Fromm.
51."For the most part, biophiliacs, lovers of life, are found among simple people, without pretensions."
- Erich Fromm.
52. "Living itself is an art in fact, the most important and at the same time the most difficult and complex art to be practiced by man."
- Erich Fromm.
53. "Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be."
- Erich Fromm.
54. "The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born."
- Erich Fromm.
55. "There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself."
- Erich Fromm.
56. "If the meaning of life has become doubtful, if one's relations to others and to oneself do not offer security, then fame is one means to silence one's doubts."
- Erich Fromm.
57. "The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness."
- Erich Fromm.
58. "Only in being productively active can man make sense of his life."
- Erich Fromm.
59. "That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable."
- Erich Fromm.
60. "It is not enough that men are not slaves; if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death."
- Erich Fromm.
61. “Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence."
- Erich Fromm.
62. "There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers."
- Erich Fromm.
63. "Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship."
- Erich Fromm.
64. "One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one's life."
- Erich Fromm.
65. "What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious thing he has, he gives of his life."
- Erich Fromm.
Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for Erich Fromm quotes then why not take a look at Maslow quotes, or Albert Ellis quotes?
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Bachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
Rajnandini RoychoudhuryBachelor of Arts specializing in English, Master of Arts specializing in English
With a Master of Arts in English, Rajnandini has pursued her passion for the arts and has become an experienced content writer. She has worked with companies such as Writer's Zone and has had her writing skills recognized by publications such as The Telegraph. Rajnandini is also trilingual and enjoys various hobbies such as music, movies, travel, philanthropy, writing her blog, and reading classic British literature.
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