We may know ourselves, and yet even with all the efforts we make, we do not know ourselves. We know our fellowman, and yet we do not know him, because we are not a thing, and our fellowman is not a thing. The further we reach into the depths of our being, on someone else's being, the more the goal of knowledge eludes us.
Erich FrommMan represses the irrational passions of destructiveness, hate, envy, revenge; he worships power, money, the sovereign state, the nation; while he pays lip service to the teachings of the great spiritual leaders of the human race, those of Buddha, the prophets, Socrates, Jesus, Mohammed-he has transformed these teachings into a jungle of superstition and idol-worship. How can mankind save itself from destroying itself by this discrepancy between intellectual-technical overmaturity and emotional backwardness?
Erich FrommThe pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced -- by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.
Erich FrommWhat we have in common is a mass men, a mass bureaucracy, and a manipulation of everyone to act smoothly, but with the illusion that he follows his own decisions and opinions.
Erich Fromm