Top 380 Erich Fromm Quotes (2024 Update)
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351. “The pathetic superstition prevails that by knowing more and more facts one arrives at knowledge of reality. Hundreds of scattered and unrelated facts are dumped into the heads of students; their time and energy are taken up by learning more and more facts so that there is little left for thinking. To be sure, thinking without a knowledge of facts remains empty and fictitious; but “information” alone can be just as much of an obstacle to thinking as the lack of it.”

— Erich Fromm

352. “People are afraid to concentrate because they are afraid of losing themselves if they are too absorbed in another person, in an idea, in an event. The less strong their self, the greater the fear of losing themselves in the act of concentration on the non-self.”

— Erich Fromm

353. “In the view of the wise, Heaven is man and Earth woman: Earth fosters what Heaven lets fall.”

— Erich Fromm

354. “Not only thinking and feeling are determined by man’s character structure but also his actions.”

— Erich Fromm

355. “The supremacy of cerebral, manipulative thinking goes together with an atrophy of emotional life.”

— Erich Fromm

356. “Force is camouflaged by consents; the consent is brought about the methods of mass suggestion.”

— Erich Fromm

357. “It was the irrational doubt which springs from the isolation and powerlessness of an individual whose attitude toward the world is one of anxiety and hatred. This irrational doubt can never be cured by rational answers; it can only disappear if the individual becomes and integral part of a meaningful world.”

— Erich Fromm

358. “People are confused and unsure, they seek answers to guide them to joy, tranquillity, self-knowledge, salvation – but they also demand that it be easy to learn, that it require little or no effort, that results be quickly obtained.”

— Erich Fromm

359. “Whether a carpenter makes a table, or a goldsmith a piece of jewelry, whether the peasant grows his corn, or the painter paints a picture, in all types of creative work the worker and his object become one, man unites himself with the world in the process of creation. This, however, holds true only for productive work, for work in which I plan, produce, see the result of my work. In the modern work process of a clerk, the worker on the endless.”

— Erich Fromm

360. “Mobilizing the love of life is the only force that can defeat the love for the dead.”

— Erich Fromm

361. “The greater the sense of powerlessness and the greater lack of authentic will, the more grows either submission or an obsessional desire for satisfaction of one’s whims and the insistence on arbitrariness.”

— Erich Fromm

362. “As Simone Weil expressed it so beautifully:“The same words can be commonplace or extraordinary according to the manner in which they are spoken. And this manner depends on the depth of the region in a man’s being from which they proceed without the will being able to do anything. And by a marvelous agreement they reach the same region in him who hears them. Thus the hearer can discern, if he has any power of discernment, what is the value of the words.”

— Erich Fromm

363. “But any explanation which analyzes one sector to the exclusion of all others is unbalanced, and thus wrong. The socio-economic, spiritual and psychological explanations look at the same phenomena from different aspects, and the very task of a theoretical analysis is to see how these different aspects are interrelated, and how they interact.”

— Erich Fromm

364. “One can hardly overestimate people’s need to talk about themselves and to be listened to.”

— Erich Fromm

365. “If the religious system does not correspond to the prevalent social character, if it conflicts with the social practice of life, it is only an ideology.”

— Erich Fromm

366. “My duty not to remain passive in a world which seems to be moving toward self-chosen catastrophe.”

— Erich Fromm

367. “Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous. Giving is more joyous than receiving, not because it is a deprivation, but because in the act of giving lies the expression of my aliveness.”

— Erich Fromm

368. “The cruelty itself is motivated by something deeper: the wish to know the secret of things and of life.”

— Erich Fromm

369. “As a child, every human being passes through a state of powerlessness, and truth is one of the strongest weapons of those who have no power.”

— Erich Fromm

370. “If two people who have been strangers, as all of us are, suddenly let the wall between them break down, and feel close, feel one, this moment of oneness is one of the most exhilarating, most exciting experiences in life. It is all the more wonderful and miraculous for persons who have been shut off, isolated, without love.”

— Erich Fromm

371. “First of all, the practice of an art requires discipline. I shall never be good at anything if I do not do it in a disciplined way; anything I do only if “I am in the mood” may be a nice or amusing hobby, but I shall never become a master in that art.”

— Erich Fromm

372. “Today we take for granted that we are we. Yet the doubt about ourselves still exists, or has even grown.”

— Erich Fromm

373. “Will is based on activity, whim on passivity.”

— Erich Fromm

374. “He is alone and free, yet powerless and afraid. The newly won freedom appears as a curse; he is free from the sweet bondage of paradise, but he is not free to govern himself, to realize his individuality.”

— Erich Fromm

375. “Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?”

— Erich Fromm

376. “Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves. Faith, in the being mode, is not, in the first place, a belief in certain ideas, but an inner orientation; an attitude.”

— Erich Fromm

377. “Man can only go forward by developing his reason, by finding a new harmony, a human one, instead of the prehuman harmony which is irretrievably lost. When.”

— Erich Fromm

378. “If humanity continues to consume natural resources irresponsibly and disrupt the balance of nature that provides human life, it will be inevitable that we will encounter the catastrophe of total extinction in less than a hundred years.”

— Erich Fromm

379. “The difference between being and having is not essentially that between East and West. The difference is rather between a society centered around persons and one centered around things.”

— Erich Fromm

380. “The “tourist” with his camera is an outstanding symbol of an alienated relationship to the world. Being constantly occupied with taking pictures, actually he does not see anything at all, except through the intermediary of the camera. The camera sees for him, and the outcome of his “pleasure” trip is a collection of snapshots, which are the substitute for an experience which he could have had, but did not have.”

— Erich Fromm

381. “Intelligence, which is used without the control of the mind, can lead people to dangers up to extinction. Utilitarian intelligence, which the mind cannot control, is dangerous as much as it is sharp.”

— Erich Fromm

382. “Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold.”

— Erich Fromm

383. “The words are vessels that are filled with experience that overflows the vessels. The words point to an experience; they are not the experience. The moment that I express what I experience exclusively in thought and words, the experience has gone: it has dried up, is dead, a mere thought. Hence being is indescribable in words and is communicable only by sharing my experience.”

— Erich Fromm

384. “There exists no more difficult art than living. For other arts and sciences, numerous teachers are to be found everywhere. Even young people believe that they have acquired these in such a way, that they can teach them to others: throughout the whole of life, one must continue to learn to live and, what will amaze you even more, throughout life one must learn to die. SENECA.”

— Erich Fromm

385. “One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves.”

— Erich Fromm

386. “Faith, in the having mode, is a crutch for those who want to be certain, those who want an answer to life without daring to search for it themselves.”

— Erich Fromm

387. “To see himself without illusions would not be so difficult for the individual, were he not constantly exposed to being brain-washed and deprived of the faculty of critical thinking. He is made to think and feel things that he would not feel or think, were it not for uninterrupted suggestions and elaborate methods of conditioning.”

— Erich Fromm

388. “The idea that one can build peace while encouraging the striving for possession and profit is an illusion, and a dangerous one, because it deprives people of recognizing that they are confronted with a clear alternative: either a radical change of their character or the perpetuity of war.”

— Erich Fromm

389. “The insane person or the dreamer fails completely in having an objective view of the world outside; but all of us are more or less insane, or more or less asleep; all of us have an unobjective view of the world, one which is distorted by our narcissistic orientation.”

— Erich Fromm

390. “Man as he appears in any given culture is always a manifestation of human nature, a manifestation, however, which in its specific outcome is determined by the social arrangements under which he lives.”

— Erich Fromm

391. “While the managers are right as far as the work methods they offer are concerned, experience has shown – and has convinced not a few managers – that if the workers can be truly active, responsible, and knowledgeable in their work role, the formerly uninterested ones change considerably and show a remarkable degree of inventiveness, activity, imagination, and satisfaction.”

— Erich Fromm

392. “As with all semantic difficulties, the answer can only be arbitrary. What matters is that we know what kind of union we are talking about when we speak of love. Do we refer to love as the mature answer to the problem of existence, or do we speak of those immature forms of love which may be called symbiotic union?”

— Erich Fromm

393. “Real conflicts between two people, those which do not serve to cover up or to project, but which are experienced on the deep level of inner reality to which they belong, are not destructive. They lead to clarification, they produce a catharsis from which both persons emerge with more knowledge and more strength.”

— Erich Fromm

394. “In the most general way, the active character of love can be described by stating that love is primarily giving, not receiving.”

— Erich Fromm

395. “The cost of social experimentation cannot possibly be borne by a state that is making itself poor by the production of hardware that is useful only as a means of suicide.”

— Erich Fromm

396. “We believe ourselves to be motivated by self-interest and yet our lives are devoted to aims which are not our own.”

— Erich Fromm

397. “The person who is given to the exclusive pursuit of his passion for money is possessed by his striving for it; money is the idol which he worships as the projection of one isolated power in himself, his greed for it.”

— Erich Fromm