Quote

Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.

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
Alienated
Pessimism
Optimism
Despair
Faith
Form

More quotes by Erich Fromm

Image
Mother's love always peace as it not to be acquired nor deserved.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
[Sigmund ] Freud assumes that every dream represents the satisfaction of adesire and in the last analysis, of a sexual desire that has its roots in infancy.
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
Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?..Is there not also, perhaps, besides an innate desire for freedom, an instinctive wish for submission?
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
Image
The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it.
Erich Fromm
Image
Politics and religious leaders [are hindered] by their egotism.
Erich Fromm
Image
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
Erich Fromm
Image
It is a tragedy that most of us die before we have begun to live.
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
The root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present.
Erich Fromm
Image
To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops.
Erich Fromm
Image
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
Image
In fact, there are very important writings of Marx which are not even translated into English.
Erich Fromm
Image
We talk a great deal about Russia today, and I'm afraid that in twenty years, we and Russia will be more similar than different.
Erich Fromm
Image
Beyond the element of giving, the active characteristic of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsability, respect and knowledge
Erich Fromm
Image
That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.
Erich Fromm