Erich Fromm Quotes
American - Psychologist March 23, 1900 - March 18, 1980




Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.
Erich Fromm

As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask.
Erich Fromm

Authority is not a quality one person 'has', in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.
Erich Fromm

If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
Erich Fromm

The psychic task which a person can and must set for himself is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
Erich Fromm

The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
Erich Fromm

The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.
Erich Fromm

Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
Erich Fromm

The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.
Erich Fromm

Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'
Erich Fromm

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.
Erich Fromm

The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots.
Erich Fromm

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
Erich From

Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?
Erich Fromm

Sanity is only that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.
Erich Fromm

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm

The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
Erich Fromm

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
Erich Fromm

Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.
Erich Fromm

Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
Erich Fromm

Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
Erich Fromm

There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.
Erich Fromm

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
Erich Fromm

We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.
Erich Fromm

The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers.
Erich Fromm

Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self.
Erich Fromm

One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
Erich Fromm