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The paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.
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
Paradoxical
Tragic
Conscience
Situation
Needs
Men
Weakest
More quotes by Erich Fromm
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
Erich Fromm
Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.
Erich Fromm
Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.
Erich Fromm
Exploitation and manipulation produce boredom and triviality they cripple man, and all factors that make man into a psychic cripple turn him also into a sadist or a destroyer.
Erich Fromm
We talk about equality, about happiness, about freedom - and about the spiritual values of religion, and about God - and in our daily life, we act on principles which are different, and partly contradictory.
Erich Fromm
We have a religious renaissance today in America, as many people say. I would say this religious renaissance, ninety percent of it is the greatest danger true religious experience has ever been confronted with.
Erich Fromm
That is not quite enough to make one happy, if one spends eight hours a day in something which in itself has no meaning and interest, except that one gains money from it.
Erich Fromm
Human history begins with man's act of disobedience which is at the same time the beginning of his freedom and the development of his reason.
Erich Fromm
Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.
Erich Fromm
Happiness is a very proud word of our whole cultural heritage.
Erich Fromm
If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.
Erich Fromm
Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.
Erich Fromm
The mother's and father's attitudes toward the child correspond to the child's own needs.... Mother has the function of making himsecure in life, father has the function of teaching him, guiding him to cope with those problems with which the particular society the child has been born into confronts him.
Erich Fromm
You have to stop in order to change direction.
Erich Fromm
Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
Erich Fromm
I would say love is something everybody talks about, and the need for love is one of the most basic needs of man, namely the experience of union with another being - of becoming one with another being.
Erich Fromm
When an individual is awake, almost all he does and says is inspired by the model of behavior that the society imposes,even without his being aware of it.
Erich Fromm
The criterion of mental health is not one of individual adjustment to a given social order, but a universal one, valid for all men, of giving a satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm
We substitute, or we rather hide, this fear of real intimacy by a superficial kind of friendliness, which is quite nice, but nevertheless, very shallow.
Erich Fromm
I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow. We are actually afraid to be intimate, with people - many people even with their wives and husbands.
Erich Fromm
