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Erich Fromm Biography

Erich Seligmann Fromm (German: [fʀɔm]; March 23, 1900 – March 18, 1980) was a German-born American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was one of Founders of The William Allison White Institute of Psychiatry, Psychoanalysis and Psychology in New York City and was associated with the Frankfurt School of critical theory.

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Erich Fromm Quotes

To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops.

Birth, Born, Death, Knowing Who You Are, Minute

Even if man's hunger and thirst and his sexual strivings are completely satisfied, 'he' is not satisfied. In contrast to the animal his most compelling problems are not solved then, they only begin. He strives for power or for love, or for destruction, he risks his life for religious, for political, for humanistic ideals, and these strivings are what constitutes and characterizes the peculiarity of human life.

Animal, Compelling, Men, Political, Religious

Love is hot a higher power which descends upon mn nor a duty which is imposed upon him; it is his own power by which he relates himself to the world and makes it truly his.

Duty, Greatest Love, Imposed, Inspirational, Love Is, Power

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.

Acts, Eye, Eyes, Hurt, Long, Resent

I have a tremendous faith in the possibilities of man, which have shown in his past, and I believe if we avoid war, we shall be able to revive our real vision of life, but that we must see it, and therefore, that we must be critical to where we are.

Real, War, Believe, Critical, Possibilities

Mother's love always peace as it not to be acquired nor deserved.

Acquired, Deserved, Love, Love Always, Mother, Mother'S Love

Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves.

Communication, Communications, Dream, Dreams, Important, Myths

One cannot fall in love, really; one has to be in love.

Fall, Falling In Love, Love

Faith is not a weak form of belief or knowledge; it is not faith in this or that; faith is the conviction about the not yet proven, the knowledge of the real possibility, the awareness of pregnancy.

Faith, Knowledge, Pregnancy, Proven, Real

Reason flows from the blending of rational thought and feeling. If the two functions are torn apart, thinking deteriorates into schizoid intellectual activity and feeling deteriorates into neurotic life-damaging passions.

Flows, Neurotic, Passion, Thinking, Thought, Two

Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.

Fairness, Feelings, Fraud, Mean, Services, Use

Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be.

Become, Independent, Life, Task, Tasks

In the dominant Western religious system, the love of God is essentially the same as the belief in God, in God’s existence, God’s justice, God’s love. The love of God is essentially a thought experience. In the Eastern religions and in mysticism, the love of God is an intense feeling experience of oneness, inseparably linked with the expression of this love in every act of living.

Belief, Expression, Living, Oneness, Religious

I think, to be specific, we got off the track when we concentrated more and more on production of things. Thereby, we created a split between intellect and emotion, because, in order to produce a modern technique, you have to use intellect, and we have created men who are very brilliant, who are very clever, but our emotional life has become impoverished.

Clever, Life, Men, Production, Thinking

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

Bitter, Death, Idea, Lived, Sympathy, Wise

I believe that one can and must hope for a sane society that furthers man's capacity to love his fellow men, to work and create, to develop his reason and his objectivity of a sense of himself that is based on the experience of his productive energy. I believe that one can and must hope for the collective regaining of a mental health that is characterized by the capacity to love and to create.

Believe, Develop, Life, Men, Reason, Work

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as love. Love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his
her
its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing.

Caring, Knowing, Love, Loving, Mean, Possess

Chronic boredom compensated or uncompensated constitutes one of the major psychopathological phenomena in contemporary technotronic society, although it is only recently that it has found some recognition.

Boredom, Compensated, Constitutes, Found, Recognition

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two.

Love, Occurs, Remain, Smile, Two

If the handbag could think, it would have a terrific inferiority feeling, because, not having been bought, it would feel useless.

Feeling, Feelings, Handbags, Think, Thinking, Useless

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