"On the whole, our modern ritual is impoverished and does not fulfill man's need for collective art and ritual."
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Quote collection
Erich Fromm quotes (page 19 of 22)
426 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"Man can only know the nagation, never the position of ultimate reality."
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"We are confronted with the possibility of a war of such destruction that the whole existence of our nation and of the whole world is at stake. And yet, people know it - people read it in the newspapers, people read that at the first attack, a hundred million Americans might be killed. And yet, they talk about it as if they were talking about something being wrong with the carburetor of their car, perhaps."
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"What we have in common is a mass men, a mass bureaucracy, and a manipulation of everyone to act smoothly, but with the illusion that he follows his own decisions and opinions."
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"I believe that none can "save" his fellow man by making a choice for him. To help him, he can indicate the possible alternatives, with sincerity and love, without being sentimental and without illusion."
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"The average American has separated his private life from his existence as a member of his society, and leaves that to the specialists in the government to take care of."
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"If we love our fellow humans, we cannot limit our insight and our love only to others as individuals...We have to be political people, I would even say passionately involved political people, each of us in the way that best suits our own temperaments, our working lives, and our own capabilities."
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"The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it."
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"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?""
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"In the sleeping state, instead, one is much more oneself, even if society never ceases to intervene."
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"I would define myself as a Marxian, and that means of course also as a humanist."
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"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."
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"Technical Utopias-flying, for example-have been achieved by the new science of nature.The human utopia...a united new humankind living in solidarity and peace, free from economic determination and from war and class struggle-can be achieved, provided we spend the same energy, intelligence, and enthusiasm on the realization of the human Utopia as we have spent on the realization of our technical Utopias."
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"From my personal experience I can conclude that many dreams are clearly written but there are some in which one meets distortions to decipher. And it is really in knowing when one must prefer the one or the other approach, or a combination of the two, that remains one of the important elements of the art of dream interpretation."
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"Modern man is assailed on every side and almost without interruption by noise - of the radio, of television, of headlines, of advertising and of the cinema - of which the greatest part, far from enlightening the mind, blunts and stultifies it."
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"We are all equal in the sense that no man must mean - must be - the means for the purposes of another man; but each individual is an end in itself."
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"Ger-mans love the ambiguous word, verbal assonances as ends in themselves,vague concepts. Anglosaxons are more clear."
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"The average American is not concerned with his society. He talks about it, but you know if one speaks of being concerned, I mean something about which one loses one's sleep, sometimes."
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"Actually, if you take the average American, and studies have shown that, he is really concerned only with private affairs; that is to say, with his health, his money and family affairs."
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"The Russians have succeeded in one thing: they have sold the world the idea that they represent socialism and the ideas of Marx,and we have done the greatest service to their propaganda by agreeing that that's what it is."
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