Quotes from Erich Fromm

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.

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

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.

Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an orientation of character which determines the relatedness of a person to the world as a whole, not toward one "object" of love. If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to the rest of his fellow men, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism. Yet, most people believe that love is constituted by the object, not by the faculty.

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.

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

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. 'Patriotism' is its cult...Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

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.

It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.

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

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.

Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.

The mature response to the problem of existence is love.

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.

The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity.

Man today being concerned with production and consumption as ends in themselves, has very little engergy time to devote himself to the true religious experience.

While every human being has a capacity for love, its realization is one of the most difficult achievements.

Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love towards themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others.