Erik H. Erikson Quotes

Erik Homburger Erikson was a German-born American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychosocial development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T. Erikson, is a noted American sociologist.

Although Erikson lacked a bachelor's degree, he served as a professor at prominent institutions such as Harvard and Yale. A Review of General Psychology survey, published in 2002, ranked Erikson as the 12th most cited psychologist of the 20th century.

✵ 15. June 1902 – 12. May 1994
Erik H. Erikson photo

Works

Childhood and Society
Childhood and Society
Erik H. Erikson
Gandhi's Truth
Erik H. Erikson
Young Man Luther
Erik H. Erikson
Erik H. Erikson: 8   quotes 15   likes

Famous Erik H. Erikson Quotes

“Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit”

Young Man Luther : A Study in Psychoanalysis and History (1958), p. 70
Context: Someday, maybe, there will exist a well-informed, well considered and yet fervent public conviction that the most deadly of all possible sins is the mutilation of a child’s spirit; for such mutilation undercuts the life principle of trust, without which every human act, may it feel ever so good and seem ever so right is prone to perversion by destructive forms of conscientiousness.

“All world-images are apt to become corrupt when left to ecclesiastic bureaucracies. But this does not make the formation of world-images expendable.”

Gandhi's Truth : On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969), Prologue : Echoes of an Event, p. 39
Context: All world-images are apt to become corrupt when left to ecclesiastic bureaucracies. But this does not make the formation of world-images expendable. And I can only repeat that we deny the remnants of old-world images at our own risk, because we do not overcome them by declaring them — with all the righteousness of skepticism — something of a secret sin. They are not less powerful for being denied.

“Doubt is the brother of shame.”

"The Problem of Ego Identity" (1956), published in Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association

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