Erich Fromm: Trending quotes (page 6)

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“People have committed suicide because of their failure to realize the passions for love, power, fame, revenge. Cases of suicide because of a lack of sexual satisfaction are virtually nonexistent.”

Erich Fromm

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 30

Love , People , Failure , Revenge

“Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.”

Erich Fromm

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

Love , Personality , Selfishness

“Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

The Art of Loving (1956)

Feeling , Fraud

“Among most Christians the Old Testament is little read in comparison to the New Testament. Furthermore, much of what is read is often distorted by prejudice. Frequently the Old Testament is believed to express exclusively the principles of justice and revenge, in contrast to the New Testament, which represents those of love and mercy; even the sentence, "Love your neighbor as yourself,” is thought by many to derive from the New, not the Old Testament. Or the Old Testament is believed to have been written exclusively in the spirit of narrow nationalism and to contain nothing of supranational universalism so characteristic of the New Testament.”

Erich Fromm

You Shall Be as Gods: A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition (1966) "Introduction"

Love , Justice , Revenge , Universe

“What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 1

People , Sex

“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.”

Erich Fromm

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

Faith , Personality

“I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which "man" is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.”

Erich Fromm

Credo (1965)

Life , World , Way , Motivation

“The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.”

Erich Fromm book Escape from Freedom

Source: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 7

Success

“The existential split in man would be unbearable could he not establish a sense of unity within himself and with the natural and human world outside.”

Erich Fromm

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 262

World , Nature , Sense

“If the individual realizes his self by spontaneous activity and thus relates himself to the world, he ceases to be an isolated atom; he and the world become part of one structuralized whole; he has his rightful place, and thereby his doubt concerning himself and the meaning of life disappears. This doubt sprang from his separateness and from the thwarting of life; when he can live, neither compulsively nor automatically but spontaneously, the doubt disappears. He is aware of himself as an active and creative individual and recognizes that there is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.”

Erich Fromm book Escape from Freedom

Source: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 7, p. 262-3

Life , World , Parting

“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx’s concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud’s.”

Erich Fromm

"The Art of Being" Pt. 3 (1989)

Time

“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.”

Erich Fromm book The Art of Loving

Source: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2

Love

“I believe that man is the product of natural evolution that is born from the conflict of being a prisoner and separated from nature, and from the need to find unity and harmony with it.”

Erich Fromm

Credo (1965)

Nature

“Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.”

Erich Fromm

Source: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 264

Success

“I believe that freedom is not a constant attribute that "we have" or "we don’t have"; perhaps there is only one reality: the act of liberating ourselves in the process of using choices. Every step in life that heightens the maturity of man heightens his ability to choose the freeing alternative.
I believe that "freedom of choice" is not always equal for all men at every moment. The man with an exclusively necrophilic orientation; who is narcissistic; or who is symbiotic-incestuous, can only make a regressive choice. The free man, freed from irrational ties, can no longer make a regressive choice.”

Erich Fromm

Credo (1965)

Life , Men , Reality , Freedom

“I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought.”

Erich Fromm

Credo (1965)

Life , Death , Law , Nature

“Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his individuality and uniqueness. To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibilty would be blind if they were not guided by the knowledge of the person's individuality.”

Erich Fromm

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3; in Ch. 2 of his later work The Art of Loving (1956) a similar statement is made :
Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.

Personality , Knowledge , Love , Fear

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Erich Fromm

Source: Man for Himself (1947), p.189

Problem , Self-confidence , World , Happiness