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
mean doe license
Freedom does not mean license.
self ideas feelings
Also in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness.
reality expectations resistance
Psychoanalysis is essentially a theory of unconscious strivings, of resistance, of falsification of reality according to one's subjective needs and expectations.
world art-of-loving
I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself.
men desire trying
Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?..Is there not also, perhaps, besides an innate desire for freedom, an instinctive wish for submission?
love-is produce
Love is a power which produces love.
teaching simple important
While we teach knowledge, we are losing that teaching which is the most important one for human development: the teaching which can only be given by the simple presence of a mature, loving person.
men thinking expression
We forget that, although freedom of speech constitutes an important victory in the battle against old restraints, modern man is in a position where much of what "he" thinks and says are the things that everybody else thinks and says; that he has not acquired the ability to think originally - that is, for himself - which alone gives meaning to his claim that nobody can interfere with the expression of his thoughts.
self liberty have-faith
We forget that, although each of the liberties which have been won must be defended with utmost vigour, the problem of freedom is not only a quantitative one, but a qualitative one; that we not only have to preserve and increase the traditional freedom, but that we have to gain a new kind of freedom, one which enables us to realize our own individual self; to have faith in this self and in life.
love maturity immature
Infantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
school men machines
Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.
education children learning
Education is helping the child realise his potentialities.
life running love-is
If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem ofhuman existence, then any societywhich excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature.
life country humanity
Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.