Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters—where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Happiness
Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Accomplishment
Hope is both the earliest and the most indispensable virtue inherent in the state of being alive. If life is to be sustained hope must remain, even where confidence is wounded, trust impaired.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Hope
The sense of identity provides the ability to experience one’s self as something that has continuity and sameness, and to act accordingly.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Identity
Personality, too, is destiny.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Appropriateness, Aptness
Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.
—Erik Erikson
Topics: Anxiety, Death, Fear
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Erich Fromm German Social Philosopher
Howard Gardner American Psychologist
Abraham Maslow American Psychologist
Bruno Bettelheim Austrian-born Psychoanalyst
B. F. Skinner American Psychologist
George W. Crane American Psychologist
Carl Rogers American Psychologist
Timothy Leary American Psychologist
Orval Hobart Mowrer American Psychologist
Martin Seligman American Psychologist