Quotes from Erich Fromm

Hope is a decisive element in any attempt to bring about social change in the direction of greater aliveness, awareness, and reason.

First of all, the practice of an art requires discipline. I shall never be good at anything if I do not do it in a disciplined way; anything I do only if I am in the mood may be a nice or amusing hobby, but I shall never become a master in that art.

The insane person or the dreamer fails completely in having an objective view of the world outside; but all of us are more or less insane, or more or less asleep; all of us have an unobjective view of the world, one which is distorted by our narcissistic orientation.

The difference between being and having is not essentially that between East and West. The difference is rather between a society centered around persons and one centered around things.

Man can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the prehuman harmony which is irretrievably lost. When

The outer chains have simply been put inside of man. The desires and thoughts that the suggestion apparatus of society fills him with, chain him more thoroughly than outer chains. This is so because man can at least be aware of outer chains but be unaware of inner chains, carrying them with the illusion that he is free. He can try to overthrow the outer chains, but how can he rid himself of chains of whose existence he is unaware? Any

The words are vessels that are filled with experience that overflows the vessels. The words point to an experience; they are not the experience. The moment that I express what I experience exclusively in thought and words, the experience has gone: it has dried up, is dead, a mere thought. Hence being is indescribable in words and is communicable only by sharing my experience.

Solo l'amore disinteressato è un sentimento maturo, completo.

Amore fraterno. La forma più fondamentale d'amore, è l'amore fraterno. Con questo intendo senso di responsabilità, premure, rispetto, comprensione per il prossimo; esso è caratterizzato dall'assenza di esclusività.

Se amassi veramente una persona, amerei il mondo, amerei la vita. Se posso dire a un altro ti amo, devo essere in grado di dire, amo tutti in te, amo il mondo attraverso te, amo in te anche me stesso.

While the managers are right as far as the work methods they offer are concerned, experience has shown—and has convinced not a few managers—that if the workers can be truly active, responsible, and knowledgeable in their work role, the formerly uninterested ones change considerably and show a remarkable degree of inventiveness, activity, imagination, and satisfaction.

be aware of the fact that words, in and by themselves, have no reality, except in terms of the context in which they are used, in terms of the intentions and the character of the one who uses them.

L'amore non è un sentimento al quale ci si possa abbandonare senza aver raggiunto un alto livello di maturità.

The need for speed and newness, which can only be satisfied by consumerism, reflects restlessness, the inner flight from oneself.

Intelligence, which is used without the control of the mind, can lead people to dangers up to extinction. Utilitarian intelligence, which the mind cannot control, is dangerous as much as it is sharp.

Non esiste né bene né male se non c'è la libertà di disobbedire.

The cost of social experimentation cannot possibly be borne by a state that is making itself poor by the production of hardware that is useful only as a means of suicide

democratically expressed opinion is hardly more than the applause at a sports event.

Come potrebbe un uomo prigioniero nella ragnatela della routine ricordarsi che è un uomo, un individuo ben distinto, uno al quale è concessa un'unica occasione di vivere, con speranze e delusioni, dolori e timori, col desiderio di amare e il terrore della solitudine e del nulla?

Senza amore, l'umanità non sopravvivrebbe un solo giorno.

Even the most sadistic and destructive man is human, as human as the saint.

He is alone and free, yet powerless and afraid. The newly won freedom appears as a curse; he is free from the sweet bondage of paradise, but he is not free to govern himself, to realize his individuality.

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.' Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.

The bureaucrat is a man who administers things and people, and who relates himself to people as to things.