The Wisdom Letter #156

5 quotes from Erich Fromm (1900–1980)

✹ For today's Wisdom Letter, we have carefully curated five bite-sized quotes from the German social psychologist and psychoanalyst, Erich Fromm (1900–1980).

Quote № 01:

“Man's life cannot "be lived" by repeating the pattern of his species; he must live. Man is the only animal that can be bored, that can be discontented, that can feel evicted from paradise. Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve and from which he cannot escape. He cannot go back to the prehuman state of harmony with nature; he must proceed to develop his reason until he becomes the master of nature, and of himself.”

— Erich Fromm

Quote № 02:

“Envy, jealousy, ambition, any kind of greed are passions; love is an action, the practice of human power, which can be practiced only in freedom and never as a result of compulsion.”

— Erich Fromm

Quote № 03:

“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.”

— Erich Fromm

Quote № 04:

“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.”

— Erich Fromm

Quote № 05:

“What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture. That was present in the apes long before the brain began to develop. Nor is it the use of tools. It is something altogether new, a previously unknown quality: self-awareness. Animals, too, have awareness. They are aware of objects; they know this is one thing and that another. But when the human being as such was born he had a new and different consciousness, a consciousness of himself; he knew that he existed and that he was something different, something apart from nature, apart from other people, too. He experienced himself. He was aware that he thought and felt. As far as we know, there is nothing analogous to this anywhere in the animal kingdom. That is the specific quality that makes human beings human.”

— Erich Fromm

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✺ Today’s Questions

Three philosophical questions to foster your curiosity:

Question № 01:

How does the unique human capacity for boredom and discontent drive innovation, and at what point does this drive become detrimental to well-being?

Question № 02:

If love is an action requiring effort and freedom, how does this challenge popular notions of love as spontaneous, emotional, or inevitable?

Question № 03:

Does self-awareness serve as humanity's greatest strength or its greatest burden, and how does this awareness shape the way humans relate to themselves, others, and the natural world?

✽ Thank you for reading today’s Wisdom Letter.

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