Quote

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.

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
Something
Spending
Men
Meaning
Think
American
Thinking
Hate
Energy
Imprisoned
Often
Unconsciously
Feels
Hates
Work
Trapped

More quotes by 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
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.
Erich Fromm
Image
To take the difficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge to overcome makes us stronger, rather than unjust punishment which should not happen to us, requires faith and courage.
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
Sleep is often the only occasion in which man cannot silence his conscience we forget what we knew in our dream.
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
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
Image
The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become ''Golems',' they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.
Erich Fromm
Image
Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves.
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
Creativity is the ability to see and to respond.
Erich Fromm
Image
Most people see the problem of love primarily as that of being loved, rather than that of loving, of one's capacity to love. Hence the problem to them is how to be loved, how to be lovable.
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
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
Erich Fromm
Image
Human history began as an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience. At this point in history the capacity to doubt, to criticize and to disobey may be all that stands between a future for mankind and the end of civilization.
Erich Fromm
Image
We are concerned with things. We are concerned with success. We are concerned with money. We are concerned with instrumentalities.
Erich Fromm
Image
Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
Erich Fromm
Image
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.
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
Close your eyes, let your spirit start to soar, and you'll live as you've never lived before.
Erich Fromm