[Sigmund Freud] makes the interpretation of dreams extremely simple: it deals in substance with discovering what unconscious desires, distorted but recognizable, are hid-den in the dream. Instead, for me the dream is a mixture of thoughts and sensations that man has when he is asleep, a mental state relatively protected from the constant noise that society makes.
Erich FrommInfantile love follows the principle: "I love because I am loved." Mature love follows the principle: "I am loved because I love." Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you.
Erich FrommThe danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become ''Golems',' they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.
Erich FrommAlso in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness.
Erich Fromm