Erich Fromm quotes - page 6

I believe that freedom is not a constant attribute that "we have" or "we don't have"; perhaps there is only one reality: the act of liberating ourselves in the process of using choices. Every step in life that heightens the maturity of man heightens his ability to choose the freeing alternative. I believe that "freedom of choice" is not always equal for all men at every moment. The man with an exclusively necrophilic orientation; who is narcissistic; or who is symbiotic-incestuous, can only make a regressive choice. The free man, freed from irrational ties, can no longer make a regressive choice. (Erich Fromm)
That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate. View quote
Erich Fromm
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. View quote
Erich Fromm
Reason is man's instrument for arriving at the truth, intelligence is man's instrument for manipulating the world more successfully the former is essentially human, the latter belongs to the animal part of man. View quote
Erich Fromm
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 superior to him. View quote
Erich Fromm
I believe that love is the main key to open the doors to the "growth" of man. Love and union with someone or something outside of oneself, union that allows one to put oneself into relationship with others, to feel one with others, without limiting the sense of integrity and independence. Love is a productive orientation for which it is essential that there be present at the same time: concern, responsibility, and respect for and knowledge of the object of the union. View quote
Erich Fromm
An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality. View quote
Erich Fromm
Hate is a product of the unfulfilled life. View quote
Erich Fromm
Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. View quote
Erich Fromm
The scars left from the child's defeat in the fight against irrational authority are to be found at the bottom of every neurosis. View quote
Erich Fromm
Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be...Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before. (Erich Fromm)
Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of compulsion. Love is an activity, not a passive affect; it is a "standing in," not a "falling for." In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving. View quote
Erich Fromm
The right to express our thoughts means something only if we are able to have thoughts of our own. View quote
Erich Fromm
Happiness is a mans greatest achievement it is the response of his total personality to a productive orientation toward himself and the world outside. View quote
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. View quote
Erich Fromm
In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God's existence, God's justice, God's love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living. View quote
Erich Fromm
Understanding a person does not mean condoning it only means that one does not accuse him as if one were God or a judge placed above him. View quote
Erich Fromm
Man may be defined as the animal that can say ''I,'' that can be aware of himself as a separate entity. View quote
Erich Fromm
In the 19th century inhumanity meant cruelty in the 20th century it means schizoid self-alienation. View quote
Erich Fromm
The application of psychoanalysis to sociology must definitely guard against the mistake of wanting to give psychoanalytic answers where economic, technical, or political facts provide the real and sufficient explanation of sociological questions. On the other hand, the psychoanalyst must emphasize that the subject of sociology, society, in reality consists of individuals, and that it is these human beings, rather than abstract society as such, whose actions, thoughts, and feelings are the object of sociological research. View quote
Erich Fromm
All great art is by its very essence in conflict with the society with which it exists. It expresses the truth about the existence regardless of whether this truth serves or hinders the survival purpose of a given society. 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)
Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter. View quote
Erich Fromm
The paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most. View quote
Erich Fromm
Women are equal because they are not different any more. View quote
Erich Fromm
The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products we are pushed, we are forced by what By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix. View quote
Erich Fromm