Erich Fromm: Trending quotes (page 3)

“Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.”

“Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.”

“Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape.”

“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.”

“That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane.”

“Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love”

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as 'moral indignation,' which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue.”

“Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.”

“Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved."
Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love."
Immature love says: "I love you because I need you."
Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.”

“Man’s main task is to give birth to himself.”

“Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.”

“The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity.”

“The mature response to the problem of existence is love.”

“Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort.”

“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”

“Modern man thinks he loses something - time - when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains, except kill it.”

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.”

“Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies”

“The more the drive toward life is thwarted, the stronger is the drive toward destruction; the more life is realized, the less is the strength of destructiveness. Destructiveness is the outcome of unlived life.”