Productive work, love and thought are possible only if a person can be, when necessary, quiet and alone. To be able to listen to oneself is the necessary condition for relating oneself to others. Erich Fromm More Quotes by Erich Fromm More Quotes From Erich Fromm Loving becomes, and the ability to love, becomes one of the most important things in life. Erich Fromm things-in-lifeimportantlove-is The most important things we talk about on Sundays are things to which we pay very little attention. Erich Fromm sundayimportantlittles I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow. We are actually afraid to be intimate, with people - many people even with their wives and husbands. Erich Fromm wifehusbandpeople If our supreme value is the development of the Western tradition - of a man for whom the highest thing in life is man, for whom love for man, respect for man, and the dignity of man, are supreme values - then we cannot ask the question that says, "if it is better for our survival, might we drop these values?" Erich Fromm things-in-lifesurvivalmen In the sleeping state, instead, one is much more oneself, even if society never ceases to intervene. Erich Fromm oneselfstatessleep In fifty years activity as an analyst I have witnessed again and again that a dreamer after having met a personage regarded by all as influential and good,saw him again in a dream with a different face. Erich Fromm different-facesdreamyears Man always dies before he is fully born. Erich Fromm bornmendeath What you might call the "symbol pushers" - that is to say, all of the people who deal with figures, with paper, with men, who manipulate - to use a better or nicer word - manipulate men and signs and words. All those today have not only to sell their service, but in the bargain, they have to sell their personality, more or less. There are exceptions. Erich Fromm personalitymenpeople We are concerned with things. We are concerned with success. We are concerned with money. We are concerned with instrumentalities. Erich Fromm concerned According to me [Sigmund ] Freud did not notice that the dream expresses the inner experiences in a symbolic form,resembling in that, poetry or other art forms. Erich Fromm formdreamart It doesn't matter whether one uses God or doesn't. What matters is which experience a person has. Erich Fromm what-mattersusematter I think our danger is that we talk one thing, and we feel and act another thing. Erich Fromm dangerfeelsthinking There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers. Erich Fromm powermenlife The activity at this very moment must be the only thing that matters, to which one is fully given. If one is concentrated, it matters little what one is doing. The important, as well as the unimportant things, assume a new dimension of reality, because they have one's full attention. Erich Fromm unimportant-thingslittlesreality Man, the more he gains freedom in the sense of emerging from the original oneness with man and nature and the more he becomes an "individual," has no choice but to unite himself with the world in the spontaneity of love and productive work or else to seek a kind of security by such ties with the world as destroy his freedom and the integrity of his individual self. Erich Fromm selfintegritymen Only in being productively active can man make sense of his life. Erich Fromm make-senseactivemen Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers and the sense of unaliveness. Among the evils of life, there are few which are as painful as boredom, and consequently every attempt is made to avoid it. Erich Fromm boredompainfulevil The criterion of mental health is not one of individual adjustment to a given social order, but a universal one, valid for all men, of giving a satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. Erich Fromm givingmenorder In times of change, learners inherit the earth Erich Fromm times-have-changedleadershipearth When an individual is awake, almost all he does and says is inspired by the model of behavior that the society imposes,even without his being aware of it. Erich Fromm inspiredbehaviordoe
