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Erich Fromm Quotes
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117 Quotes on Love, Human Nature, and Society's Profound Wisdom

Explore the profound wisdom of Erich Fromm through his famous quotes on love, human nature, and society. Gain insight into the complexities of the human experience and the need for social change to foster love and mental health.

Erich Fromm was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in Frankfurt, Germany in 1900 and fled the Nazi regime to settle in the United States. Fromm played a key role in the establishment of The William Alanson White Institute and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory. He obtained his PhD in sociology from the University of Heidelberg and trained as a psychoanalyst through Frieda Reichmann's psychoanalytic sanatorium. Fromm had a significant impact on the field of psychology and sociology, teaching at various universities and publishing numerous books throughout his career.

After moving to Mexico City in 1949, Fromm became a professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico while also continuing his own clinical practice. He later taught at Michigan State University and New York University before retiring in 1965. Fromm was known for his atheistic views but described himself as a "nontheistic mystic." He passed away at his home in Switzerland in 1980, just days before his eightieth birthday. Throughout his life, Erich Fromm made significant contributions to the fields of psychology, philosophy, and sociology, leaving behind a lasting legacy through his writings and teachings.

✵ 23. March 1900 – 18. March 1980
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Erich Fromm: 119   quotes 19   likes

Erich Fromm Quotes

“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