Quotes

“What most people in our culture mean by being lovable is essentially a mixture between being popular and having sex appeal.” Erich Fromm

“Man always dies before he is fully born.” Erich Fromm

“Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.” Erich Fromm

“The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.” Erich Fromm

“To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.” Erich Fromm

“There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.” Erich Fromm

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

“Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.” Erich Fromm

“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.” Erich Fromm

“Sanity is only that which is within the frame of reference of conventional thought.” Erich Fromm

“The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.” Erich Fromm

“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or to be acted out under the guise of virtue.” Erich Fromm

“There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.” Erich Fromm

“Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture.” Erich Fromm

“Authority is not a quality one person 'has,' in the sense that he has property or physical qualities. Authority refers to an interpersonal relation in which one person looks upon another as somebody superior to him.” Erich Fromm

“There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.” Erich Fromm

“Just as modern mass production requires the standardization of commodities, so the social process requires standardization of man, and this standardization is called equality.” Erich Fromm

“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.” Erich Fromm

“Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the world with which man is confronted.” Erich Fromm

“A life spent making mistakes is not only more honorable, but more useful than a life spent doing nothing.” George Bernard Shaw

“A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.” George Bernard Shaw

“Beware of false knowledge; it is more dangerous than ignorance.” George Bernard Shaw

“I learned long ago, never to wrestle with a pig. You get dirty, and besides, the pig likes it.” George Bernard Shaw

“Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.” George Bernard Shaw

“We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.” George Bernard Shaw

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” George Bernard Shaw

“We are made wise not by the recollection of our past, but by the responsibility for our future.” George Bernard Shaw

“First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity.” George Bernard Shaw

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw

“People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it.” George Bernard Shaw