Quotes By Erich Fromm

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

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

In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man.

What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.

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.

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

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.

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.

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

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

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

We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake.

To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.

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

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

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

If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.