Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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

More quotes by Erich Fromm

Image
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.
Erich Fromm
Image
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.
Erich Fromm
Image
Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
Erich Fromm
Image
Love is hot a higher power which descends upon mn nor a duty which is imposed upon him it is his own power by which he relates himself to the world and makes it truly his.
Erich Fromm
Image
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.
Erich Fromm
Image
If I am attached to another person because I cannot stand on my own two feet, he or she may be a life saver, but the relationship is not one of love.
Erich Fromm
Image
Love is the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love.
Erich Fromm
Image
Once they are through the process of education, most people lose the capacity of wondering, of being surprised. They feel they ought to know everything, and hence that it is a sign of ignorance to be surprised or puzzled by anything.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the world with which man is confronted.
Erich Fromm
Image
I only wish to be the fountain of love from which you drink, every drop promising eternal passion.
Erich Fromm
Image
A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism.
Erich Fromm
Image
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
Erich Fromm
Image
Man does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity.
Erich Fromm
Image
Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life
Erich Fromm
Image
Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
Erich Fromm
Image
Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Love is not a spontaneous feeling, a thing that you fall into, but is something that requires thought, knowledge, care, giving, and respect. And it is something that is rare and difficult to find in capitalism, which commodifies human activity.
Erich Fromm
Image
Politics and religious leaders [are hindered] by their egotism.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.
Erich Fromm