Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm
Erich Seligmann Frommwas a German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth23 March 1900
CountryUnited States of America
equality men history
Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.
spheres ifs productive
If one is not productive in other spheres, one is not productive in the love either.
love-life men quality
Critical and radical thought will only bear fruit when it is blended with the most precious quality man is endowed with - the love of life
errors people doe
The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane.
affluence want affluent
The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.
ability-to-love ability art-of-loving
Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.
time learning knowledge
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.
sadism instinct sexuality
When blended with sexuality, the death instinct is transformed into more harmless impulses expressed in sadism or masochism.
love-life life-and-death life-is
Mobilizing the love of life is the only force that can defeat the love for the dead.
tyrants goal enemy
Another nation is made out to be utterly depraved and fiendish, while one's own nation stands for everything that is good and noble. Every action of the enemy is judged by one standard - every 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.
validation ideas people
It is naively assumed that the fact that the majority of people share certain ideas and feelings proves the validity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing could be further from the truth. Consensual validation as such has no bearing on reason or mental health.
learning roots
The root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present.
love-life men cogs
. . . freedom to creat and construct, to wonder and to venture. Such freedom requires that the individual be active and responsible, not a slave or a well-fed cog in the machine . . . It is not enough that men are not slaves; if social conditions further the existence of automatons, the result will not be love of life, but love of death.
sanity frame-of-reference conventional
Sanity is only that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.