Quotes by Erich Fromm

"Men are born equal but they are also born different."

"Modern man lives under the illusion that he knows what he wants, while he actually wants what he is supposed to want."

"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead ; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead . In the nineteenth century inhumanity meant cruelty; in the twentieth century it means schizoid self-alienation. The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots."

"Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much."

"We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them."

"As we ascend the social ladder, viciousness wears a thicker mask."

"The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers."

"If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?"

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

"There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself."

"The task we must set for ourselves is not to feel secure, but to be able to tolerate insecurity."

"Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve."

"We all dream; we do not understand our dreams, yet we act as if nothing strange goes on in our sleep minds, strange at least by comparison with the logical, purposeful doings of our minds when we are awake."

"Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either."

"Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."

"The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist."

"There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers."

"The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal."

"The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man."

"Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market."