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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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Erich Fromm
Age: 79 †
Born: 1900
Born: March 23
Died: 1980
Died: March 18
Philosopher
Psychoanalyst
Psychologist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Frankfurt/Main
Make
Mere
Men
Hero
Handicaps
Life
Passion
Heroism
Sense
Transform
Human
Tries
Humans
Passions
Thing
Tremendous
Trying
Spite

More quotes by Erich Fromm

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You have to stop in order to change direction.
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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.
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It is a tragedy that most of us die before we have begun to live.
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It is essential... that discipline should not be practised like a rule imposed on oneself from the outside, but that it becomes an expression of one's own will that it is felt as pleasant, and that one slowly accustoms oneself to a kind of behaviour which one would eventually miss, if one stopped practising it.
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I think American man unconsciously hates his work very often, because he feels trapped by it... imprisoned by it... because he feels that he is spending most of his energy for something which has no meaning in itself.
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Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality - or as one says sometimes, our personality package - for something.
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To be loved because of one's merit, because one deserves it, always leaves doubt maybe I did not please the person whom I want to love me, maybe this, or that - there is always a fear that love could disappear.
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We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.
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I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity.
Erich Fromm
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Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want.
Erich Fromm
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Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be.
Erich Fromm
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The average American is not concerned with his society. He talks about it, but you know if one speaks of being concerned, I mean something about which one loses one's sleep, sometimes.
Erich Fromm
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What is common to our societies is the development into a managed mass society, with big bureaucracy, managing people. The Russians do it by force. We do it by persuasion.
Erich Fromm
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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.
Erich Fromm
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Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
Erich Fromm
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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?
Erich Fromm
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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.
Erich Fromm
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If you do not smile, you are judged lacking in a 'pleasing personality' - and you need to have a pleasing personality if you want to sell your services, whether as a waitress, a salesman, or a physician.
Erich Fromm
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We are terribly imaginative, as far as technique in science is concerned. As far as changes in social arrangements are concerned, we lack utterly in imagination.
Erich Fromm
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I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence he is aware of others as others man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought.
Erich Fromm