9 Erich Fromm Quotes on Meaning

Erich Fromm quotes on meaning

5. 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.

7. Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts. He has to have a frame of orientation which permits him to organize a consistent picture of the world as a condition for consistent actions. He has to fight not only against the dangers of dying, starving, and being hurt, but also against another danger which is specifically human: that of becoming insane. In other words, he has to protect himself not only against the danger of losing his life but also against the danger of losing his mind.

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

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

33. In spite of increasing production and comfort, man loses more and more the sense of self, feels that his life is meaningless, even though such a feeling is largely unconscious. In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.

65. 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.

72. As long as anyone believes that his ideal and purpose is outside him, that it is above the clouds, in the past or in the future, he will go outside himself and seek fulfillment where it cannot be found. He will look for solutions and answers at every point except where they can be found - in himself.

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

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