Erich Fromm (1900–80) was a German-born American psychoanalyst, social philosopher, and author. He applied psychoanalysis to the study of peoples and cultures with an emphasis on the importance of interpersonal relationships in an impersonal, industrialized society.
Born in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Fromm was educated at the universities of Frankfurt, Heidelberg, and Munich, and the Berlin Institute of Psychoanalysis. He immigrated to America in 1934, and, after maintaining numerous university assignments, became a professor at New York in 1962. He later expanded his views to integrate some of the principles of Zen Buddhism.
Fromm emphasized social, economic, and cultural factors on human behavior. He wrote extensively—for both the academic and the general reader—on topics ranging from sociology, anthropology, and ethics to religion, politics, and mythology. His works include Escape from Freedom (1941,) Man for Himself (1947,) Psychoanalysis and Religion (1951,) The Sane Society (1955,) Sigmund Freud’s Mission (1959,) and The Heart of Man (1964.)
Among Fromm’s other books are The Art of Loving (1956,) May Man Prevail? (1961; with D. T. Suzuki and Richard Dimartino,) Beyond the Chains of Illusion (1962,) The Revolution of Hope (1968,) and The Crisis of Psychoanalysis (1970.)
Fromm’s later work included The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973,) which developed his examination of human aggression.
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Modern man thinks he loses something—time—when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains—except kill it.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Value of Time, Time, Time Management
To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Grief
Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Romance
We are not only less reasonable and less decent in our dreams… we are also more inteligent, wiser and capable of better judgment when we are asleep than when we are awake.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Dreams
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: The Present, Present
Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Authority
The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Science, Scientists
What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Popularity
Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Motherhood, Mothers
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Gratitude, Blessings, Defects, Appreciation, Greed
Human history begins with man’s act of disobedience which is at the very same time the beginning of his freedom and development of his reason.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Reason
Man is the only animal that can be bored.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Boredom
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Death, Dying
The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Attachment
Our conscious motivations, ideas, and beliefs are a blend of false information, biases, irrational passions, rationalizations, prejudices, in which morsels of truth swim around and give the reassurance albeit false, that the whole mixture is real and true. The thinking processes attempt to organize this whole cesspool of illusions according to the laws of plausibility. This level of consciousness is supposed to reflect reality; it is the map we use for organizing our life.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Truth
Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the world with which man is confronted.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Reason
Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Boredom
In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Love
Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Potential, Best, Life
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
Topics: Control, Authority
If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Property, Possessions
I am convinced that boredom is one of the greatest tortures. If I were to imagine Hell, it would be the place where you were continually bored.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Boredom
Why should society feel responsible only for the education of children, and not for the education of all adults of every age?
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Education
Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Love
Let your mind start a journey thru a strange new world. Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before. Let your soul take you where you long to be…Close your eyes let your spirit start to soar, and you’ll live as you’ve never lived before.
—Erich Fromm
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Revolution, Revolutions, Revolutionaries
The capacity to be puzzled is … the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Creativity
That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.
—Erich Fromm
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Creativity, Uncertainty
The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Security
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
Topics: Equality
One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one’s life. Even if man had no monetary, or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Boredom
A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Dreams
Today we come across an individual who behaves like an automaton, who does not know or understand himself, and the only person that he knows is the person that he is supposed to be, whose meaningless chatter has replaced communicative speech, whose synthetic smile has replaced genuine laughter, and whose sense of dull despair has taken the place of genuine pain. Two statements may be said concerning this individual. One is that he suffers from defects of spontaneity and individuality which may seem to be incurable. At the same time it may be said of him he does not differ essentially from the millions of the rest of us who walk upon this earth.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Pain, Individuality, Smile, Earth, Despair, Laughter, Rest
Man may be defined as the animal that can say “I,” that can be aware of himself as a separate entity.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Identity
The paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Conscience
There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by unfolding of his powers.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Meaning, Purpose
Conditions for creativity are to be puzzled; to concentrate; to accept conflict and tension; to be born everyday; to feel a sense of self.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Creativity
Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by “patriotism” I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one’s own nation, which is the concern with the nation’s spiritual as much as with its material welfare—never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Nationalism, Patriotism
Integrity simple means not violating one’s own identity.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Identity, Integrity
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