A person who has not been completely alienated, who has remained sensitive and able to feel, who has not lost the sense of dignity, who is not yet "for sale", who can still suffer over the suffering of others, who has not acquired fully the having mode of existence - briefly, a person who has remained a person and not become a thing - cannot help feeling lonely, powerless, isolated in present-day society. He cannot help doubting himself and his own convictions, if not his sanity. He cannot help suffering, even though he can experience moments of joy and clarity that are absent in the life of his "normal" contemporaries. Not rarely will he suffer from neurosis that results from the situation of a sane man living in an insane society, rather than that of the more conventional neurosis of a sick man trying to adapt himself to a sick society. In the process of going further in his analysis, i.e. of growing to greater independence and productivity, his neurotic symptoms will cure themselves.

More quotes by Erich Fromm

View all
"Mother's love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved."

- Erich Fromm

Love

"Immature love says: ‘I love you because I need you.’ Mature love says: ‘I need you because I love you.’"

- Erich Fromm

Love

"Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved."

- Erich Fromm

Love

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'"

- Erich Fromm

Love

"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you."

- Erich Fromm

Love

More Adversity Quotes

View all
"Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful."

- Joshua J. Marine

Adversity

"The greater the difficulty, the more the glory in surmounting it."

- Epicurus

Adversity

"It is a rough road that leads to the heights of greatness."

- Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Adversity

"The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself—the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us—that’s where it’s at."

- Jesse Owens

Adversity

"If there is no struggle, there is no progress."

- Frederick Douglass

Adversity