Quotes from Erich Fromm

Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself.

There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.

For the most part, biophiliacs,lovers of life, are found among simple people, without pretensions.

To take the difficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge to overcome makes us stronger, rather than unjust punishment which should not happen to us, requires faith and courage.

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.

Destructiveness is the outcome of an unlived life.

The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.

Jewish legend says that the world rests on 36 just men: only thirty six, but their moral strength is immense.

We are concerned with things. We are concerned with success. We are concerned with money. We are concerned with instrumentalities.

Man always dies before he is fully born.

Sanity is only that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?

Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.

It is time to cease to argue about God , and instead to unite in the unmasking of contemporary forms of idolatry.

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.

If there is no evidence that sport lowers aggression, at the same time it should be said that there is also no evidence that sport is motivated by aggression.

The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it.

To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.

Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.

People do not see that the main question is not : "Am I loved?" which is to a large extent the question : "Am I approved of? Am I protected? Am I admired?" The main question is: "Can I love?

Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.