A man's conflicts represent what he 'really' is. Erik Erikson More Quotes by Erik Erikson More Quotes From Erik Erikson The fact that human conscience remains partially infantile throughout life is the core of human tragedy. Erik Erikson tragedy life-is facts Personality, too, is destiny. Erik Erikson destiny personality healing Babies control and bring up their families as much as they are controlled by them; in fact ... the family brings up baby by being brought up by him. Erik Erikson controlled baby facts Doubt is the brother of shame. Erik Erikson shame brother doubt The growing child must derive a vitalizing sense of reality from the awareness that his individual way of mastering experience (his ego synthesis) is a successful variant of a group identity and is in accord with its space-time and life plan. Erik Erikson successful children reality Do not mistake a child for his symptom. Erik Erikson wisdom mistake children The American feels too rich in his opportunities for free expression that he often no longer knows what he is free from. Neither does he know where he is not free; he does not recognize his native autocrats when he sees them. Erik Erikson government expression opportunity Let us face it: 'deep down' nobody in his right mind can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always lived and will live hereafter. Erik Erikson assuming mind faces Hope is the enduring belief in the attainability of fervent wishes, in spite of the dark urges and rages which mark the beginning of existence. Hope is the ontogenetic basis of faith, and is nourished by the adult faith which pervades patterns of care. Erik Erikson care wish dark These same experiences make of the sequence of life cycles a generational cycle, irrevocably binding each generation to those that gave it life and to those for whose life it is responsible. Thus, reconciling lifelong generativity and stagnation involves the elder in a review of his or her own years of active responsibility for nurturing the next generations, and also in an integration of earlier-life experiences of caring and of self-concern in relation to previous generations. Erik Erikson caring responsibility years You can actively flee, then, and you can actively stay put. Erik Erikson You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly. Erik Erikson law faces facts When established identities become outworn or unfinished ones threaten to remain incomplete, special crises compel men to wage holy wars, by the cruelest means, against those who seem to question or threaten their unsafe ideological bases. Erik Erikson men war mean If one sees the personality not as an apparatus that is essentially constructed by the time childhood is over, but as always in its essence developing, then life at 25 or 30 or at the gateway to middle age will stimulate its own intrigue, surprise, and exhilaration of discovery. Erik Erikson essence discovery inspirational In the evaluation of the dominant moods of any historical period it is important to hold fast to the fact that there are always islands of self-sufficient order — on farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters — where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives: as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness. Erik Erikson home happiness people Mans true taproots are nourished in the sequence of generations, and he loses his taproots in disrupted developmental time, not in abandoned localities. Erik Erikson sequence abandoned generations Will, therefore, is the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame and doubt in infancy. Erik Erikson determination self exercise Nobody likes to be found out, not even one who has made ruthless confession a part of his profession. Any autobiographer, therefore, at least between the lines, spars with his reader and potential judge. Erik Erikson lines likes judging In America nature is autocratic, saying, "I am not arguing, I am telling you. Erik Erikson arguing america There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding, which constitutes a new hope and a new responsibility for all. Erik Erikson new child responsibility hope