Quotes from Erik Erikson

Life doesn't make any sense without interdependence. We need each other, and the sooner we learn that, the better for us all

Why do we think the face has turned away which only looked elsewhere?

A man's conflicts represent what he 'really' is.

You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things without uttering a word. You can see how he solves his problems. You can also see what's wrong. Young children, especially, have enormous creativity, and whatever's in them rises to the surface in free play.

The more you know yourself, the more patience you have for what you see in others.

Every adult, whether he is a follower or a leader, a member of a mass or of an elite, was once a child. He was once small. A sense of smallness forms a substratum in his mind, ineradicably. His triumphs will be measured against this smallness; his defeats will substantiate it.

The psychoanalytic method is essentially a historical method.

Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

He who is ashamed would like to force the world not to look at him, not to notice his exposure. He would like to destroy the eyes of the world.

The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love and play.

Personality, too, is destiny.

The sense of identity provides the ability to experience one's self as something that has continuity and sameness, and to act accordingly.

Will, therefore, is the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame and doubt in infancy.

Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are controlled by them; in fact ... the family brings up baby by being brought up by him.

Adolescents need freedom to choose, but not so much freedom that they cannot, in fact, make a choice.