Quote

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

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
Order
Universal
Problem
Answer
Criterion
Human
Health
Satisfactory
Humans
Answers
Valid
Giving
Existence
Adjustment
Men
Individual
Criteria
Social
Sanity
Given
Mental

More quotes by Erich Fromm

Image
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
Erich Fromm
Image
I understand by socialism a society in which the aim of production is not profit, but the use. In which the individual citizen participates responsibly in his work, and in the whole social organization, and in which he is not a means who is employed by capital.
Erich Fromm
Image
Jewish legend says that the world rests on 36 just men: only thirty six, but their moral strength is immense.
Erich Fromm
Image
A vast sector of modern advertising... does not appeal to reason but to emotion like any other kind of hypnoid suggestion, it tries to impress its objects emotionally and then make them submit intellectually.
Erich Fromm
Image
Man can never stand still. He must find solutions to this contradiction, and ever better solutions to the extent to which reality enables him.
Erich Fromm
Image
If the Russians claim they are Socialist, this is just, I would say, a lie. They have no socialism at all. They have what I would call a state capitalism.
Erich Fromm
Image
The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group.
Erich Fromm
Image
We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilization.
Erich Fromm
Image
We all dream we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
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
Image
There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
Erich Fromm
Image
According to me [Sigmund ] Freud did not notice that the dream expresses the inner experiences in a symbolic form,resembling in that, poetry or other art forms.
Erich Fromm
Image
Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers who want to consume more and more and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated ... what is the outcome? Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow man and from nature.
Erich Fromm
Image
Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers.
Erich Fromm
Image
We are all equal in the sense that no man must mean - must be - the means for the purposes of another man but each individual is an end in itself.
Erich Fromm
Image
Man can be conditioned to behave in almost every desired way but only almost.
Erich Fromm
Image
Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.
Erich Fromm