Erich Fromm Zitate seite 4 37 tiefsinnige Weisheiten über Liebe, menschliche Natur und Gesellschaft

„Nichts fördert das Kreative mehr als die Liebe, vorausgesetzt, sie ist echt.“

"Die Kunst des Liebens", Frankfurt/M 1992 S. 31, Verlag Ullstein GmbH
"In the experience of love the paradox happens that two people become one, and remain two at the same time." - The Sane Society. Fawcett 1985. p. 37
Die Kunst des Liebens

„Man schließt zu zweit einen Bund gegen die Welt und hält dann diesen égoisme à deux irrtümlich für Liebe und Vertrautheit.“

Pathologie der Normalität

„Liebe ist das Kind der Freiheit, niemals das der Beherrschung.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Wenn es- wie ich aufzuzeigen versuchte - wahr ist, daß die Liebe die einzig befriedigende Antwort auf das Problem der menschlichen Existenz ist, dann muß jede Gesellschaft, die die Entwicklung der Liebe ausschließt, letzten Endes an ihrem Widerspruch zu den grundlegenden Notwendigkeiten der menschlichen Natur zugrunde gehen.“

"Die Kunst des Liebens", Frankfurt/M 1992 S.39, Verlag Ullstein GmbH
"love is the child of freedom, never that of domination." - The Sane Society
Die Kunst des Liebens
Variante: Die Liebe ist das Kind der Freiheit,
niemals der Beherrschung

„[…] kann Lust dennoch kein Wertkriterium sein. Denn es gibt Menschen, die an der Unterwerfung und nicht an der Freiheit Lust empfinden, für die nicht Liebe, sondern Haß, nicht produktive Arbeit, sondern Ausbeutung Lust bedeutet.“

"Die Kunst des Liebens", Frankfurt/M (u.a.) 1956. S. 170.
"If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature." - The Art of Loving (1956). Chapter 2
Die Kunst des Liebens

„Wahrheit wird niemals durch Gewalt widerlegt.“

Psychoanalyse und Ethik, in: Analytische Charaktertheorie Band II. Autorisierte Übersetzung von Liselotte und Ernst Mickel. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1980. S. 14
"[...] pleasure cannot be a criterion of value. For there are people who enjoy submission and not freedom, who derive pleasure from hate and not from love, from exploitation and not from productive work.
Psychoanalyse und Ethik

Erich Fromm Zitate und Sprüche

„Das Wort "Interesse" stammt vom lateinischen inter-esse, das heisst "dabeisein", "beim anderen sein", nicht in sich selbst eingeschlossen sein.“

Die Kraft der Liebe

„Die Idee, dass man die Wahrheit auf dem Weg des Denkens finden könne, führt nicht nur zum Dogma, sondern auch zur Wissenschaft.“

„Vernunft ist die Fähigkeit, objektiv zu denken. Die ihr zugrunde liegende Haltung ist die Demut.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Marx geht es wie der Bibel: Er wird viel zitiert und kaum verstanden.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„[Erkenntnis] ist nur möglich, wenn ich mein eigenes Interesse transzendiere und den anderen so sehe, wie er wirklich ist.“

Humanismus als reale Utopie

„Selbst nach der Geburt unterscheidet sich das Kind kaum von dem, was es vor der Geburt war; es kann noch keinen Gegenstand erkennen, es ist sich seiner selbst und der Welt als etwas außerhalb von ihm Liegendes noch nicht bewusst.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Der Mensch sieht sich - zu allen Zeiten und in allen Kulturen - vor das Problem der Lösung der einen und immer gleichen Frage gestellt: wie er sein Abgetrenntsein überwinden, wie er zur Vereinigung gelangen, wie er sein eigenes einzelnes Leben transzendieren und das Einswerden erreichen kann.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„[Der Mensch] würde dem Wahnsinn verfallen, wenn er sich nicht aus diesem Gefängnis befreien könnte - wenn er nicht in irgendeiner Form seine Hände nach anderen Menschen ausstrecken und sich mit der Welt außerhalb seiner selbst vereinigen könnte.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Die Entwicklung der patriarchalischen Gesellschaft geht Hand in Hand mit der Entwicklung des Privateigentums“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Mutterliebe ist Frieden. Sie braucht weder erworben, noch verdient zu werden.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Der Mensch ist abhängig; er bleibt dem Tode, dem Alter, der Krankheit unterworfen (…). Aber es ist eine Sache, die eigene Abhängigkeit und seine Grenzen anzuerkennen, und es ist etwas völlig anderes, sich dieser Abhängigkeit hinzugeben und jene Mächte anzubeten, von denen man abhängt (…). Das eine bedeutet Demut, das andere Selbstdemütigung.“

„Das Denken kann uns nur zur Erkenntnis führen, dass es selsbt uns die letzte Antwort nicht geben kann.“

„Der Anpassungstheorie liegen folgende Annahmen zugrunde: 1. Jede Gesellschaft als soche ist normal; 2. seelisch krann ist, wer von dem von der Gesellschaft favorisierten Persönlichkeitstyp abweicht; 3. das Gesundheitswesen im Bereich von Psychiatrie udn Psychotherapie verfolgt das Ziel, den einzelnen auf das Niveau des Durchschnittschmenschen zu bringen, unabhängig davon, ob dieser blind ist oder nicht blind.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Auf ihrer Suche nach der Einheit hinter der Mannigfaltigkeit kamen die brahmanischen Denker zu dem Schluss, dass das von ihnen wahrgenommene Gegensatzpaar nicht das Wesen der Dinge, sondern das Wesen des wahrnehmenden Geistes widerspiegelt. Das wahrnehmende Denken muss sich selbst transzendieren, um die wahre Wirklichkeit zu erreichen. Der Widerspruch ist eine Kategorie des menschlichen Geistes und nicht an und für sich ein Element der Wirklichkeit.“

La patología de la normalidad

„Das Wesentliche an der Existenz des Menschen ist ja, dass er sich über das Tierreich und seine instiktive Anpassung erhoben hat, dass er die Natur transzendiert hat, wenn er sie auch nie ganz verlässt.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

„Der Krieg als Institution war ebenso wie das Königstum und die Bürokratie eine neue Erfindung, etwa aus der Zeit um 3000 v. Chr. Damals wie heute lagen ihm keine psychologischen Faktoren, wie etwa die menschliche Aggression, zugrunde.“

Die Kunst des Liebens

Erich Fromm buch Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität

"Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität", S. 186
"War as an institution was a new invention, like kingdom or bureaucracy, made around 3000 BC. Then as now, it was not caused by psychological factors, such as human aggression, but, aside from the wishes for power and glory of the kings and their bureaucracy, was the result of objective conditions thast made war useful and which, as a consequence, tended to generate and increase human destructiveness and cruelty." - The Evidence Against the Instinctivist Thesis, in: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness. p. 163
Anatomie der menschlichen Destruktivität

„Die Haltung dem "Fremden" gegenüber ist von der Haltung sich selbst gegenüber nicht zu trennen. Solange ich einen Mitmenschen als grundsätzlich verschieden von mir erfahre, solange er für mich ein Fremder ist, bleibe ich auch mir selber ein Fremder.“

„Die Normalsten sind die Kränkesten. Und die Kranken sind die Gesündesten.“

Erich Fromm buch Haben oder Sein

Das Zusichkommen des Menschen. Fernsehinterview mit Micaela Lämmle und Jürgen Lodemann, in: Basler Magazin, Basel, Nr. 47 (24.12.1977), S. 3. Wiederveroeffentlicht in: Erich Fromm als Vordenker: "Haben oder Sein" im Zeitalter der ökologischen Krise, Rainer Funk, Erich Fromm, Marko Ferst, Burkhard Bierhoff, Johannes Rau u.a., Edition Zeitsprung, Berlin 2002. S. 18

Erich Fromm: Zitate auf Englisch

“Psychoanalysis is essentially a theory of unconscious strivings, of resistance, of falsification of reality according to one's subjective needs and expectations.”

“Chronic boredom — compensated or uncompensated — constitutes one of the major psychopathological phenomena in contemporary technotronic society, although it is only recently that it has found some recognition.”

Quelle: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 109

“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.”

Quelle: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 273

“In erotic love, two people who were separate become one. In motherly love, two people who were one become separate. The mother must not only tolerate, she must wish and support the child’s separation.”

The Revolution of Hope: Toward a Humanized Technology (1968)

“By necrophilia is meant love for all that is violence and destruction; the desire to kill; the worship of force; attraction to death, to suicide, to sadism; the desire to transform the organic into the inorganic by means of "order." The necrophile, lacking the necessary qualities to create, in his impotence finds it easy to destroy because for him it serves only one quality: force.”

Erich Fromm buch Die Kunst des Liebens

Quelle: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2

“The sadistic person is as dependent on the submissive person as the latter is on the former; neither can live without the other. The difference is only that the sadistic person commands, exploits, hurts, humiliates, and that the masochistic person is commanded, exploited, hurt, humiliated. This is a considerable difference in a realistic sense; in a deeper emotional sense, the difference is not so great as that which they both have in common: fusion without integrity.”

Credo (1965)

“I believe that the fundamental alternative for man is the choice between "life" and "death"; between creativity and destructive violence; between reality and illusions; between objectivity and intolerance; between brotherhood-independence and dominance-submission.”

Erich Fromm buch Die Kunst des Liebens

Quelle: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2

“By narcissism is meant ceasing to have an authentic interest in the outside world but instead an intense attachment to oneself, to one’s own group, clan, religion, nation, race, etc. — with consequent serious distortions of rational judgment. In general, the need for narcissistic satisfaction derives from the necessity to compensate for material and cultural poverty.”

Credo (1965)

“By incestuous symbiosis is meant the tendency to stay tied to the mother and to her equivalents — blood, family, tribe — to fly from the unbearable weight of responsibility, of freedom, of awareness, and to be protected and loved in a state of certainty dependence that the individual pays for with the ceasing of his own human development.”

Credo (1965)

“I believe that the nature of man is a contradiction rooted in the conditions of human existence that requires a search for solutions, which in their turn create new contradictions and now the need for answers.
I believe that every answer to these contradictions can really satisfy the condition of helping man to overcome the sense of separation and to achieve a sense of agreement, of unity, and of belonging.
I believe that in every answer to these contradictions, man has the possibility of choosing only between going forward or going back; these choices, which are translated into specific actions, are means toward the regressing or toward the progressing of the humanity that is in us.”

Credo (1965)

“People have committed suicide because of their failure to realize the passions for love, power, fame, revenge. Cases of suicide because of a lack of sexual satisfaction are virtually nonexistent.”

Credo (1965)

“Man’s biological weakness is the condition of human culture.”

Quelle: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 30

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

Erich Fromm buch Escape from Freedom

Quelle: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 2

“Fairness means not to use fraud and trickery in the exchange of commodities and services and the exchange of feelings.”

Quelle: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

“Among most Christians the Old Testament is little read in comparison to the New Testament. Furthermore, much of what is read is often distorted by prejudice. Frequently the Old Testament is believed to express exclusively the principles of justice and revenge, in contrast to the New Testament, which represents those of love and mercy; even the sentence, "Love your neighbor as yourself,” is thought by many to derive from the New, not the Old Testament. Or the Old Testament is believed to have been written exclusively in the spirit of narrow nationalism and to contain nothing of supranational universalism so characteristic of the New Testament.”

Erich Fromm buch Die Kunst des Liebens

The Art of Loving (1956)

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

You Shall Be as Gods: A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition (1966) "Introduction"

“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.”

Erich Fromm buch Die Kunst des Liebens

Quelle: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 1

“I believe in the possible realization of a world in which man can be much, even if he has little; a world in which the dominant motivation of existence is not consumption; a world in which "man" is the end, first and last; a world in which man can find the way of giving a purpose to his life as well as the strength to live free and without illusions.”

Quelle: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

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

Credo (1965)

“The existential split in man would be unbearable could he not establish a sense of unity within himself and with the natural and human world outside.”

Erich Fromm buch Escape from Freedom

Quelle: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 7

“If the individual realizes his self by spontaneous activity and thus relates himself to the world, he ceases to be an isolated atom; he and the world become part of one structuralized whole; he has his rightful place, and thereby his doubt concerning himself and the meaning of life disappears. This doubt sprang from his separateness and from the thwarting of life; when he can live, neither compulsively nor automatically but spontaneously, the doubt disappears. He is aware of himself as an active and creative individual and recognizes that there is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.”

Quelle: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 262

“The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of Marx and Freud. Marx showed the moving powers and the conflicts in the social-historical process. Freud aimed at the critical uncovering of the inner conflicts. Both worked for the liberation of man, even though Marx’s concept was more comprehensive and less time-bound than Freud’s.”

Erich Fromm buch Escape from Freedom

Quelle: Escape from Freedom (1941), Ch. 7, p. 262-3

“The narcissistic, the domineering, the possessive woman can succeed in being a "loving” mother as long as the child is small. Only the really loving woman, the woman who is happier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her own existence, can be a loving mother when the child is in the process of separation.”

"The Art of Being" Pt. 3 (1989)

“I believe that man is the product of natural evolution that is born from the conflict of being a prisoner and separated from nature, and from the need to find unity and harmony with it.”

Erich Fromm buch Die Kunst des Liebens

Quelle: The Art of Loving (1956), Ch. 2

“Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.”

Credo (1965)

“I believe that freedom is not a constant attribute that "we have" or "we don’t have"; perhaps there is only one reality: the act of liberating ourselves in the process of using choices. Every step in life that heightens the maturity of man heightens his ability to choose the freeing alternative.
I believe that "freedom of choice" is not always equal for all men at every moment. The man with an exclusively necrophilic orientation; who is narcissistic; or who is symbiotic-incestuous, can only make a regressive choice. The free man, freed from irrational ties, can no longer make a regressive choice.”

Quelle: The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973), p. 264

“I believe that the unity of man as opposed to other living things derives from the fact that man is the conscious life of himself. Man is conscious of himself, of his future, which is death, of his smallness, of his impotence; he is aware of others as others; man is in nature, subject to its laws even if he transcends it with his thought.”

Credo (1965)

“Care and responsibility are constituent elements of love, but without respect for and knowledge of the beloved person, love deteriorates into domination and possessiveness. Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his individuality and uniqueness. To respect a person is not possible without knowing him; care and responsibilty would be blind if they were not guided by the knowledge of the person's individuality.”

Credo (1965)

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Quelle: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 3; in Ch. 2 of his later work The Art of Loving (1956) a similar statement is made :
Respect is not fear and awe; it denotes, in accordance with the root of the word (respicere = to look at), the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.