Erich Fromm — Quote from To Have or to Be?
“If I am what I have and if what I have is lost, who then am I?”
To Have or to Be? (1976)
Concepts: authenticity, alienation, meaning
Resonant Quotes
- “The people recognize themselves in their commodities; they find their soul in...” — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man Marcuse's people finding their soul in commodities and Fromm's crisis of identity through possession both expose how ...
- “Existence precedes essence. Man first of all exists, encounters himself, surg...” — Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism Fromm's crisis of possessive identity dissolves in Sartre's radical freedom—if existence precedes essence, we are nev...
- “The biggest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quie...” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard's insight that losing oneself passes unnoticed perfectly complements Fromm's diagnosis of how we unconsci...
- “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death Kierkegaard's insight into despair as self-alienation perfectly complements Fromm's critique, as defining oneself thr...
- “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” — Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death Both thinkers identify the fundamental alienation of defining ourselves through external categories rather than authe...
- “The tragedy of modern man is not that he knows less and less about the meanin...” — Václav Havel, Letters to Olga Both diagnose modern alienation—Fromm shows how possessive identity creates existential crisis, while Havel reveals o...
- “The human dilemma is that which arises out of a man's capacity to experience ...” — Rollo May, The Courage to Create Both quotes illuminate the fundamental existential tension between our self-conception and our capacity for self-alie...
- “I cannot make you understand. I cannot make anyone understand what is happeni...” — Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis Both authors capture the profound alienation that occurs when our constructed sense of self—whether based on possessi...