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

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
Alienated
Pessimism
Optimism
Despair
Faith
Form

More quotes by Erich Fromm

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Love is not easy. All great religions postulate love as one of the greatest accomplishments. If it were that easy, or as easy as most people think, certainly, the great religious leaders would have been rather naive.
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In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
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In our enthusiasm to dominate nature and to produce more material good - goods - we have transformed means into ends.
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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.
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The state of sleep is a state of freedom in which man is not occupied with the manipulation of the outside world.
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I believe indeed that to rescue the humanist tradition of the last decades is of the utmost importance, and that Victor Serge is one of the outstanding personalities representing the socialist aspect of humanism.
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To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
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I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.
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There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group.
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The fact is that the culture does not have only positive effects on our intellectual and moral functions but also negative effects.
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I want to mention that Marx shares something, if you don't mind the comparison, with the Old Testament: many people talk about him, but nobody has read him.
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When people can't handle God any more, they turn to religion.
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The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.
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The narcissistic, the domineering, the possessive woman can succeed in being a loving mother as long as the child is small. Only the really loving woman, the woman who is happier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her own existence, can be a loving mother when the child is in the process of separation.
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What is for me socialism is exactly the opposite of a bureaucratically-managed culture.
Erich Fromm
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Creativity is the ability to see and to respond.
Erich Fromm
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Man today being concerned with production and consumption as ends in themselves, has very little engergy time to devote himself to the true religious experience.
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I would define myself as a Marxian, and that means of course also as a humanist.
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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
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Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
Erich Fromm