Erich Fromm Individual Quotations

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. ''Patriotism'' is its cult. It should hardly be necessary to say, that by ''patriotism'' I mean that attitude which puts the own nation above humanity, above the principles of truth and justice; not the loving interest in one's own nation, which is the concern with the nation's spiritual as much as with its material welfare --never with its power over other nations. Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.

The most important factor for the development of the individual is the structure and the values of the society into which he was born.

To love one person productively means to be related to his human core, to him as representing mankind. Love for one individual, in so far as it is divorced from love for man, can refer only to the superficial and to the accidental; of necessity it remains shallow.

The duty to be alive is the same as the duty to become oneself, to develop into the individual one potentially is.

If an individual is able to love productively, he loves himself, too; if he can love only others, he cannot love at all.

The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself; indeed, we should be fully born when we die.