"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."

Erich Fromm Psychology See all quotes by Erich Fromm →

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“Neurosis can be understood best as the battle between tendencies within an individual; deep character analysis leads, if successful, to the progressive solution.”

“The International Erich Fromm Society”

“One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.”

“Erich Fromm Archive at the Marxists.org Internet Archive”

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

“Psychoanalysis is essentially a theory of unconscious strivings, of resistance, of falsification of reality according to one's subjective needs and expectations.”

Resonant Thoughts

"We would know far more about life’s complexities if we applied ourselves to the close study of its contradictions instead of wasting so much time on similarities and connections, which should anyway, …"

— José Saramago

Literature1922–2010

#knowledge

"There are many great masters and very great realized beings in India and there have been many great realized beings in Tibet also, but they are not saying, “I'm realized, therefore I can do anything; …"

— Ogyen Trinley Dorje

Literature1985

#education

"Throughout human history, societies have grappled with fundamental questions of how to organize themselves, the proper relationship between the individual and the state, the best means to resolve inev…"

— Barack Obama

Politics1961

#justice

"You must all take instructions from me!" the conscience shrieks, in effect, to all the other mental processes. The other processes try it for a while, note that the conscience is unappeased, that it c…"

— Kurt Vonnegut

Literature1922–2007

#leadership