Escape — Philosophical Quotes
Fromm's central argument was disarmingly simple: freedom is terrifying, and most of us will do almost anything to avoid it. We escape into consumerism, ideology, nationalism, submission to authority. Each exit feels like relief. Each one costs something essential. The thinkers gathered here trace the ways we run from ourselves and ask what it would take to stay put, to sit with the discomfort of being free and responsible and uncertain.
13 quotes from 7 voices: Erich Fromm, bell hooks, Franz Kafka, James Joyce, James Baldwin, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Virginia Woolf.
- “Modern man, freed from the bonds of pre-individualistic society, which simult...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
- “The person who gives up his individual self and becomes an automaton, identic...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
- “The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness. It is the expre...” — Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom
- “When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds...” — bell hooks, All About Love
- “A cage went in search of a bird.” — Franz Kafka, The Zuerau Aphorisms
- “In the struggle between yourself and the world, second the world.” — Franz Kafka, The Zuerau Aphorisms
- “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” — James Joyce, Ulysses
- “Love takes off masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot l...” — James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time
- “People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.” — James Baldwin, Notes of a Native Son
- “Taking a new step, uttering a new word, is what people fear most.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
- “You cannot find peace by avoiding life.” — Virginia Woolf, The Voyage Out
- “Nothing has ever been more insupportable for a man and a human society than f...” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
- “Man is sometimes extraordinarily, passionately, in love with suffering.” — Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground