Quotes from book
Young Man Luther

Young Man Luther: A Study in Psychoanalysis and History is a 1958 book by psychologist Erik Erikson. It was one of the first psychobiographies of a famous historical figure. Erikson found in Martin Luther a good model of his discovery of "the identity crisis". Erikson was sure he could explain Luther's spontaneous eruption, during a monastery choir practice, "I am not!"According to Erikson, Luther suffered through an environment that fomented crisis, and succeeded in a healthy resolution, thereby becoming more fulfilled than if the crisis had not been experienced. In the end Luther chose the obedient, provincial leadership path his father had wished for him, rather than the national fame he could have easily pursued after his celebrity and wealth, but only after Luther had disobeyed and suffered many years in an identity crisis.


Erik H. Erikson photo

“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.

Similar authors

Erik H. Erikson photo
Erik H. Erikson 8
American German-born psychoanalyst & essayist 1902–1994
Erich Fromm photo
Erich Fromm 117
German social psychologist and psychoanalyst
Herta Müller photo
Herta Müller 28
German-Romanian novelist, poet and essayist
Christopher Morley photo
Christopher Morley 30
American journalist, novelist, essayist and poet
Emil M. Cioran photo
Emil M. Cioran 531
Romanian philosopher and essayist
Edward Abbey photo
Edward Abbey 146
American author and essayist
Thomas Mann photo
Thomas Mann 159
German novelist, and 1929 Nobel Prize laureate
Hermann Hesse photo
Hermann Hesse 168
German writer
Otto Stern photo
Otto Stern 2
German physicist
Albert Einstein photo
Albert Einstein 702
German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativi…