Quote

. . . freedom to creat and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine . . . It is not enough that men are not slaves if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death.

Erich Fromm

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Erich Fromm
Age: 79 †
Born: 1900
Born: March 23
Died: 1980
Died: March 18
Philosopher
Psychoanalyst
Psychologist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Frankfurt/Main
Life
Individual
Slave
Constructs
Social
Result
Feds
Death
Responsible
Slaves
Wells
Conditions
Venture
Well
Results
Machine
Enough
Wonder
Requires
Automatons
Men
Existence
Machines
Cogs
Love
Freedom
Active
Construct

More quotes by Erich Fromm

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The human passions transform man from a mere thing into a hero, into a being that in spite of tremendous handicaps tries to make sense of life.
Erich Fromm
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Modern man is assailed on every side and almost without interruption by noise - of the radio, of television, of headlines, of advertising and of the cinema - of which the greatest part, far from enlightening the mind, blunts and stultifies it.
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We have faith in the potentialities of others, of ourselves, and of mankind because, and only to the degree to which, we have experienced the growth of our own potentialities, the reality of growth in ourselves, the strength of our own power of reason and love.
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In the 19th century inhumanity meant cruelty in the 20th century it means schizoid self-alienation.
Erich Fromm
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Mobilizing the love of life is the only force that can defeat the love for the dead.
Erich Fromm
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Sleep is often the only occasion in which man cannot silence his conscience we forget what we knew in our dream.
Erich Fromm
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A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.
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To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops.
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The need for the creation of collective art and ritual on a nonclerical basis is at least as important as literacy and higher education.
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Productive work, love and thought are possible only if a person can be, when necessary, quiet and alone. To be able to listen to oneself is the necessary condition for relating oneself to others.
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We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilization.
Erich Fromm
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Hate is a product of the unfulfilled life.
Erich Fromm
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The essential difference between the unhappy, neurotic type person and him of great joy is the difference between get and give.
Erich Fromm
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Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
Erich Fromm
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To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
Erich Fromm
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Chronic boredom compensated or uncompensated constitutes one of the major psychopathological phenomena in contemporary technotronic society, although it is only recently that it has found some recognition.
Erich Fromm
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A new question has arisen in modern man's mind, the question, namely, whether life is worth living...No sensible answer can be given to the question...because the question does not make any sense.
Erich Fromm
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Finally one arrives at this: the state of sleep has an ambiguous function in sleep, the lack of contact with the culture brings out the worst and also the best in us.
Erich Fromm
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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.
Erich Fromm
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The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become ''Golems',' they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.
Erich Fromm