More Quotes by Erich Fromm
Respect is not fear and awe; it...[is]the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.Fromm
We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilization.
Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built
Many psychiatrists and psychologists refuse to entertain the idea that society as a whole may be lacking in sanity. They hold that the problem of mental health in a society is only that of the number of 'unadjusted' individuals, and not of a possible unadjustment of the culture itself.
Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
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.
If other people do not understand our behavior-so what? Their request that we must only do what they understand is an attempt to dictate to us. If this is being 'asocial' or 'irrational' in their eyes, so be it. Mostly they resent our freedom and our courage to be ourselves. We owe nobody an explanation or an accounting, as long as our acts do not hurt or infringe on them.
To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness
If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.
