Quotes from Erich Fromm

almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to

Regard Earth and Heaven as endowed with intelligence, since they do the work of intelligent beings.

religious ideology is needed in order to keep people from losing discipline and thus threatening social coherence.

Wenn ich einen Menschen wahrhaft liebe, so liebe ich alle Menschen, so liebe ich die Welt, so liebe ich das Leben. Wenn ich zu einem anderen sagen kann: Ich liebe dich, muss ich auch sagen können: Ich liebe in dir auch alle anderen, ich liebe durch dich die ganze Welt, ich liebe in dir auch mich selbst.

In a successful manipulation of the mind the person is no longer saying the opposite of what he thinks, but he thinks the opposite of what is true.

Sex no longer frightens people; it can no longer be used to develop a sense of guilt, and thereby to force submission.

?ovek ?e tragati za uto?ištem u crkvi i religiji, jer ga njegova unutrašnja praznina nagoni da potraži neko sklonište. Me?utim, ispovedanje religije nije isto, što i biti religiozan.

Todos son completamente libres, siempre que no interfieran con los derechos legítimos de los demás.

Luther established a purely patriarchal form of Christianity in Northern Europe that was based on the urban middle class and the secular princes. The essence of this new social character is submission under patriarchal authority, with work as the only way to obtain love and approval. Behind the Christian façade arose a new secret religion, "industrial religion," that is rooted in the character structure of modern society, but is not recognized as "religion.

Real conflicts between two people, those which do not serve to cover up or to project, but which are experienced on the deep level of inner reality to which they belong, are not destructive. They lead to clarification, they produce a catharsis from which both persons emerge with more knowledge and more strength.

The industrial religion is incompatible with genuine Christianity. It reduces people to servants of the economy and of the machinery that their own hands build.

Worte sind Gefäße, die wir mit Erlebnissen füllen, doch diese quellen über das Gefäß hinaus.

Prometeu nu se supune, dar nici nu se simte vinovat.

But since success depends largely on how one sells one's personality, one experiences oneself as a commodity or, rather, simultaneously as the seller and the commodity to be sold. A person is not concerned with his or her life and happiness, but with becoming salable.

We have become automatons who live under the illusion of being self-willing individuals.

the understanding of the reasons for the totalitarian flight from freedom is a premise for any action which aims at the victory over the totalitarian forces.

Cuanto más nos liberemos del afán de poseer en todas sus formas, en especial de nuestro egocentrismo, menos poderoso será el miedo a la muerte, ya que no tendremos nada que perder.

Creation and destruction, love and hate, are not two instincts which exist independently. They are both answers to the same need for transcendence, and the will to destroy must rise when the will to create cannot be satisfied. However, the satisfaction of the need to create leads to happiness; destructiveness to suffering, most of all, for the destroyer himself.

Love is not primarily caused by a specific object, but a lingering quality in a person which is only actualized by a certain object.

The problem of education hinges on this point. If parents were more developed themselves and rested in their own center, the opposition between authoritarian and laissez-faire education would hardly exist. Needing this being-authority, the child reacts to it with great eagerness; on the other hand, the child rebels against pressure or neglect by people who show by their own behavior that they themselves have not made the effort they expect from the growing child.)

Solo en la medida en que la práctica de la vida se vea libre de sus contradicciones y de su irracionalidad, el mapa podrá corresponder a su realidad.

The loss of the self has increased the necessity to conform, for it results in a profound doubt of one's own identity.

Man—man and woman—can create by planting seeds, by producing material objects, by creating art, by creating ideas, by loving one another. In the act of creation man transcends himself as a creature, raises himself beyond the passivity and accidentalness of his existence into the realm of purposefulness and freedom. In man's need for transcendence lies one of the roots for love, as well as for art, religion and material production.

Hatred is a passionate wish for destruction; love is a passionate affirmation of an object; it is not an affect but an active striving and inner relatedness, the aim of which is the happiness, growth, and freedom of its object. It is a readiness which, in principle, can turn to any person and object including ourselves.