Quotes from Erich Fromm, The Sane Society

Life: “The aim of life is to live it intensely, to be fully born, to be fully awake. […] To be able to love life, and yet to accept death without terror; to tolerate uncertainty about the most important questions with which life confronts us—and yet to have faith in our thought and feeling, inasmuch as they are truly yours. To be able to be alone, and at the same time one with a loved person, with every brother on this earth, with all that is alive; to follow the voice of our conscience, the voice that calls us to ourselves, yet not to indulge in self hate when the voice of conscience was not loud person is the person who lives by love, reason and faith, who respects life, his own and that of his fellow man.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 204)).


Alienation: “The alienated person feels inferior whenever he suspects himself of not being in line. Since his sense of worth is based on approval as the reward for conformity, he feels naturally threatened in his sense of self and in his self-esteem by any feeling, thought or action which could be suspected of being a deviation. Yet, inasmuch as he is human and not an automaton, he cannot help deviating, hence he must feel afraid of disapproval all the time.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 204))


Freedom/Conformity: “Authority in the middle of the twentieth century has changed its character; it is not overt authority, but anonymous, invisible, alienated authority. Nobody makes a demand, neither a person, nor an idea, nor a moral law. Yet we all conform as much or more than people in an intensely authoritarian society would.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 152)).

“The mechanism through which the anonymous authority operates is conformity. I ought to do what everybody does, hence, I must conform, not be different, not “stick out”;[…] I must not ask whether I am right or wrong, but whether I am adjusted, whether I am not “peculiar,” not different. The only thing which is permanent in me is just this readiness for change. Nobody has power over me, except the herd of which I am a part, yet to which I am subjected.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 155)).

“There is no overt authority which intimidates us, but we are governed by the fear of the anonymous authority of conformity.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 102)).

“Behind the intense passion for status and conformity is this very need, and it is sometimes even stronger than the need for physical survival.” (Erich Fromm, The Sane Society (p. 63)).