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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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
You have to stop in order to change direction.
—Erich Fromm
The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind—not the fiend or the sadist.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Power
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 paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Conscience
One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Sadness
Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Existence, Problems
Sanity: that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Sanity
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Uncertainty, Creativity
The lack of objectivity, as far as foreign nations are concerned, is notorious. From one day to another, another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while ones own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standardevery action of oneself by another. Even good deeds by the enemy are considered a sign of particular devilishness, meant to deceive us and the world, while our bad deeds are necessary and justified by our noble goals which they serve.
—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
Topics: Gratitude, Defects, Greed, Appreciation, Blessings
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
Immature love says: “I love you because I need you.” Mature love says: “I need you because I love you.”
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Love
The capacity to be puzzled is … the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Creativity
Man’s biological weakness is the condition of human culture.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Weakness
Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Assurance, Belief, Faith, Confidence
A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Dreams
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
Most people die before they are fully born. Creativeness means to be born before one dies.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Creativity
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
Religion and nationalism, as well as any custom and any belief however absurd and degrading, if it only connects the individual with others, are refuges from what man most dreads: isolation.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Nationalism
To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Death, Dying
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
Topics: Adversity, Life
Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Self-Discovery, Birth, Potential, Personality
Even if man’s hunger and thirst and his sexual strivings are completely satisfied, ‘he’ is not satisfied. In contrast to the animal his most compelling problems are not solved then, they only begin. He strives for power or for love, or for destruction, he risks his life for religious, for political, for humanistic ideals, and these strivings are what constitutes and characterizes the peculiarity of human life.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Man, Mankind
The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Revolutionaries, Revolutions, Revolution
In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Love
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
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
Topics: Consumerism
Love is an act of faith.
—Erich Fromm
Topics: Romance
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