Quotes from Erich Fromm

there are also those whose character structure, and hence whose conflicts, differ from those of the majority, so that the remedies which are effective for most of their fellow men are of no help to them. Among this group we sometimes find people of greater integrity and sensitivity than the majority, who for this very reason are incapable of accepting the cultural opiate, while at the same time they are not strong and healthy enough to live soundly "against the stream.

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

Hitler reacted primarily in a sadistic fashion toward people, but masochistically toward fate, history, the "higher power" of nature.

Those who unconsciously despair yet put on the mask of optimism are not necessarily wise. But those who have not given up hope can succeed only if they are hardheaded realists, shed all illusions, and fully appreciate the difficulties.

Force is camouflaged by consents; the consent is brought about the methods of mass suggestion.

Will is based on activity, whim on passivity.

We... have created a greater material wealth than any other society in the history of the human race. Yet we have managed to kill off millions of our population in an arrangement which we call war.

The greater the sense of powerlessness and the greater lack of authentic will, the more grows either submission or an obsessional desire for satisfaction of one's whims and the insistence on arbitrariness.

Der Mensch sieht sich - zu allen Zeiten und in allen Kulturen - vor das Problem der Lösung der einen und immer gleichen Frage gestellt: wie er sein Abgetrenntsein überwinden, wie er zur Vereinigung gelangen, wie er sein eigenes einzelnes Leben transzendieren und das Einswerden erreichen kann.

If the religious system does not correspond to the prevalent social character, if it conflicts with the social practice of life, it is only an ideology.

Automatons cannot love; they can exchange their "personality packages" and hope for a fair bargain.

In other words, ideas can become powerful forces, but only to the extent to which they are answers to specific human needs prominent in a given social character.

Das Denken kann uns nur zur Erkenntnis führen, dass es selsbt uns die letzte Antwort nicht geben kann.

It was the irrational doubt which springs from the isolation and powerlessness of an individual whose attitude toward the world is one of anxiety and hatred. This irrational doubt can never be cured by rational answers; it can only disappear if the individual becomes and integral part of a meaningful world.

Die Idee, dass man die Wahrheit auf dem Weg des Denkens finden könne, führt nicht nur zum Dogma, sondern auch zur Wissenschaft.

It is essential [...] that discipline should not be practiced like a rule imposed on oneself from the outside, but that it becomes an expression of one's own will; that it is felt as pleasant, and that one slowly accustoms oneself to a kind of behavior which one would eventually miss, if one stopped practicing it.

Sólo existe certeza con respecto al pasado, y con respecto al futuro, la certeza de la muerte.

To be concentrated means to live fully in the present, in the here and now, and not to think of the next thing to be done, while I am doing something right now.

since men are equal and thus have the same wish for happiness, and since there is not enough wealth to satisfy them all to the same extent, they necessarily fight against each other and want power to secure the future enjoyment of what they have at present.

Sin amor, la humanidad no podría existir un día mas.

Freud was so imbued with the spirit of his culture that he could not go beyond certain limits which were set by it. These very limits became limitations for his understanding even of the sick individual; they handicapped his understanding of the normal individual and of the irrational phenomena operating in social life.

Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure.

Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves. Faith, in the being mode, is not, in the first place, a belief in certain ideas, but an inner orientation; an attitude.

We believe ourselves to be motivated by self-interest and yet our lives are devoted to aims which are not our own