#Quote
More Quotes by Erich Fromm
A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast; in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism
If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
The deepest need of the human being is to overcome our separateness, to leave the prison of our loneliness.
Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity.
Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.
As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found- in himself.
Well-being is possible to the degree to which one has overcome one's narcissism; to the degree to which one is open, responsive, sensitive, awake, empty.... Well-being means, finally, to drop one's Ego, to give up greed, to cease chasing after preservation and the aggrandizement of the Ego, to be and to experience one's self in the act of being, not in having, preserving, coveting, using.
People do not see that the main question is not : "Am I loved?" which is to a large extent the question : "Am I approved of? Am I protected? Am I admired?" The main question is: "Can I love?
Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.
