Quotes from Erich Fromm

In the stage of full maturity he has freed himself from the person of mother and of father as protecting and commanding powers; he has established the motherly and fatherly principles in himself. He has become his own father and mother; he is father and mother.

Gustavo Solivellas dice: No hay casi ninguna actividad, ninguna empresa, que comience con tan tremendas esperanzas y expectativas, y que, sin embargo, falle tan regularmente, como el amor (Erich Fromm)

The despair of the human automaton is fertile soil for the political purposes of Fascism.

Gustavo Solivellas dice: El amor inmaduro dice: "te amo porque te necesito". El maduro dice: "te necesito porque te amo" (Erich Fromm)

ÇoÄŸumuz sevilmeyi ummuÅŸuzdur yaln?zca giydirilip beslenmeyi deÄŸil, anla??lmay?, dikkate al?nmay?, sayg? gösterilmeyi beklemiÅŸizdir. ÇoÄŸumuz inanabilmeyi ummuÅŸuzdur. Küçükken, o insan buluÅŸu olan yalan? henüz bilmiyorduk yaln?zca sözlerle söylenen yalan? deÄŸil, sesle, mimiklerle, gözlerle, yüzsel anlat?mla yalan söylemeyi de bilmiyorduk.

Si uno está concentrado, poco importa qué está haciendo; las cosas importantes, tanto como las insignificantes, toman una nueva dimensión de la realidad, porque están llenas de la propia atención.

Messianism is not accidental to man's existence but the inherent, logical answer to it—the alternative to man's self-destruction.

The martyr's characteristics are being, giving, sharing; the hero's, having, exploiting, forcing. (It should be added that the formation of the pagan hero is connected with the patriarchal victory over mother-centered society. Men's dominance of women is the first act of conquest and the first exploitative use of force; in all patriarchal societies after the men's victory, these principles have become the basis of men's character.)

What a person considers the minimal necessities depends as much on his character as it depends on his actual possessions.

There is a sentence in the Old Testament which I think has some reference to our situation today. It says: "And you shall be cursed because thou did not serve thy God, in joy and gladness amidst the abundance of things." [Deuteronomium 28:47] We have an abundance of things but we serve them and without joy and gladness.

Jesus thus becomes an idol; the belief in him becomes the substitute for one's own act of loving. In a simple, unconscious formula: "Christ does all the loving for us; we can go on in the pattern of the Greek hero, yet we are saved because the alienated 'faith' in Christ is a substitute for the imitation of Christ." That Christian belief is also a cheap cover for one's own rapacious attitude goes without saying.

The concept of original sin, which weighs upon all future generations, is characteristic of the authoritarian experience. Moral like any other kind of human failure becomes a fate which man can never escape. Whoever has once sinned is chained eternally to his sin with iron shackles, Man's own doing becomes the power that rules over him and never lets him free. The consequences of guilt can be softened by atonement, but atonement can never do away with the guilt.

the individual must blind himself from seeing that which his group claims does not exist, or accept as truth that which the majority says is true, even if his own eyes could convince him that it is false. The herd is so vitally important for the individual that their views, beliefs, feelings, constitute reality for him, more so than what his senses and his reason tell him.

Bu nas?l oldu? Nas?l oldu da, insano?lu, do?aya kar?? kazand??? utkunun doru?undayken, kendi yaratt??? ?eylerin tutsa?? haline geldi, nas?l oldu da, ciddi olarak kendi kendini yok etme tehlikesiyle kar?? kar??ya kald??

Reconoceremos que mientras tememos conscientemente no ser amados, el temor real, aunque habitualmente inconsciente, es el de amar. Amar significa comprometerse sin garantías, entregarse totalmente con la esperanza de producir amor en la persona amada. El amor es un acto de fe, y quien tenga poca fe también tiene poco amor.

The outside reality, persons and things, have meaning only in terms of their satisfying or frustrating the inner state of the body. Real is only what is within; what is outside is real only in terms of my needs—never in terms of its own qualities or needs.

Doubt is the starting point of modern philosophy; the need to silence it had a most powerful stimulus on the development of modern philosophy and science. But although many rational doubts have been solved by rational answers, the irrational doubt has not disappeared and cannot disappear as long as man has not progressed from negative freedom to positive freedom.

Eckhart approaches the problems of having on another level when he discusses the relation between possession and freedom. Human freedom is restricted to the extent to which we are bound to possession, works, and lastly, to our own egos. By being bound to our egos

Çünkü devrim, hiçbir zaman umutsuzluk temeli üzerine kurulmam??t?r ve de kurulamaz.

Man and society are resurrected every moment in the act of hope and of faith in the here and now; every act of love, of awareness, of compassion is resurrection; every act of sloth, of greed, of selfishness is death. Every moment existence confronts us with the alternatives of resurrection or death; every moment we give an answer. This answer lies not in what we say or think, but in what we are, how we act, where we are moving.

Freedom in the sense of being unfettered, free from the craving for holding onto things and one's ego, is the condition for love and for productive being. Our human aim, according to Eckhart, is to get rid of the fetters of egoboundness, egocentricity, that is to say the having mode of existence, in order to arrive at full being.

Olas? olmayan?n gerçekleÅŸmesi, olas?l???n s?n?rlar? içindedir.

Man is not a subject opposing the world in order to transform it; he is in the world making his being in the world the occasion for constant self-transformation

L]ove for a particular object is only the actualization and concentration of lingering love with regard to one person; it is not, as the idea of romantic love would have it, that there is only the one person in the world whom one can love, that it is the great chance of one's life to find that person, and that love for him results in withdrawal from all others.