Quotes from Erich Fromm

formulated by John Dewey that I express the thought in his words: "The serious threat to our democracy," he says, "is not the existence of foreign totalitarian states. It is the existence within our own personal attitudes and within our own institutions of conditions which have given a victory to external authority, discipline, uniformity and dependence upon The Leader in foreign countries.

la conoscenza ha inizio con la demolizione delle illusioni, la de-lusione [Ent-täuschung]

Tragedija svih velikih religija je da one krše i izopa?uju same principe slobode ?im postanu masovne organizacije, kojima vlada religiozna birokratija.

All three negative utopias make it appear that it is possible to dehumanize man completely, and yet for life to go on.

Une société essentiellement vouée au consumérisme et à l'accumulation de marchandises induit l'individu à minorer son souci d'être (être bien, être quelqu'un de bien, faire le bien) et à majorer ses tendances à avoir, à accaparer, à s'aliéner dans les choses, accumuler les pouvoirs.

The courage of despair is the opposite of the courage of love, just as the faith in power is the opposite of the faith in life.

Only if man masters society and subordinates the economic machine to the purposes of human happiness and only if he actively participates in the social process, can he overcome what now drives him into despair—his aloneness and his feeling of powerlessness. Man does not suffer so much from poverty today as he suffers from the fact that he has become a cog in a large machine, an automaton, that his life has become empty and lost its meaning.

Paradoxical logic was predominant in Chinese and Indian thinking, in the philosophy of Heraclitus, and then again, under the name of dialectics, it became the philosophy of Hegel, and of Marx.

In contrasto con l'unione simbiotica, l'amore maturo ha condizione di preservare la propria integrità, la propria individualità.

knowing begins with the awareness of the deceptiveness of our common sense perceptions, in the sense that our picture of physical reality does not correspond to what is "really real" and, mainly, in the sense that most people are half-awake, half-dreaming, and are unaware that most of what they hold to be true and self-evident is illusion produced by the suggestive influence of the social world in which they live.

El amor a la vida es el núcleo, un núcleo muy concreto y real, de todo tipo de amor. Quien crea que ama a los seres humanos sin amar la vida, puede desear apegarse a otra persona, pero no amarla de verdad. Nos imaginamos entonces a una persona que ama todo lo que crece y está vivo, que se siente atraída por el crecimiento infantil, por la maduración. Para semejante persona, incluso lo que no está vivo, como una piedra o el agua, se convierte en algo vivo.

L'amore è un potere attivo dell'uomo; un potere che annulla le pareti che lo separano dai suoi simili, che gli fa superare il senso d'isolamento e di separazione, e tuttavia gli permette di essere se stesso e di conservare la propria integrità.

Sembra un paradosso, ma nell'amore due esseri diventano uno, e tuttavia restano due.

One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves.

This phenomenon, of seeing the emperor's garments although he is naked, has existed for many millennia. This is how even the stupidest people were able to become regents. They proclaimed their belief that they were wise—and it was, for their people, usually already too late by the time the ruler had to prove his wisdom.

No nos sorprende cuando los dirigentes políticos y los ejecutivos de los negocios toman decisiones que parecen beneficiarnos y que al mismo tiempo son nocivas y peligrosas para la comunidad . Desde luego, si el egoísmo es un pilar en la ética practica contemporánea. No parecen saber que la avaricia (y la sumisión) vuelve a la gente estupida, aun a lo que atañe a su verdadero interés, al interés de sus propias vidas y las vidas de sus parejas y sus hijos.

As with all semantic difficulties, the answer can only be arbitrary.

Invidia, gelosia, ambizione, bramosia, sono passioni; l'amore è un'azione, un potere umano che può essere praticato solo in libertà, e non è la conseguenza si una costrizione.

Psychologically, faith has two entirely different meanings. It can be the expression of an inner relatedness to mankind and affirmation of life; or it can be a reaction formation against a fundamental feeling of doubt, rooted in the isolation of the individual and his negative attitude toward life.

Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.

As a matter of fact, in watching the phenomenon of human decisions, one is struck by the extent to which people are mistaken in taking as "their" decision what in effect is submission to convention, duty, or simple pressure. It almost seems that "original" decision is a comparatively rare phenomenon in a society which supposedly makes individual decision

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.

Yeni insan ve yeni bir toplumun gerçekleÅŸebilmesi için ilk önce, eski motivasyonlar olan kar ve güçlülük tutkular?n?n yerlerini yenilerine; olmaya, diÄŸer insanlar? anlamaya çal??maya ve paylaÅŸmaya b?rakmalar? gerekmektedir. Sonra pazar ekonomisi karakterinin yerine, üretici ve sevme yeteneÄŸine sahip karakterin ve sibernetik din yerine de, radikal-hümaniter bir anlay???n geçmesi ÅŸartt?r.

L'amore è un sentimento attivo, non passivo; è una conquista, non una resa.