Erich Fromm Quotes

On the whole, however, it is only out of pride or gross ignorance, or cowardice, that we refuse to see in the present the lineaments of times to come.

Those who do not move, do not notice their chains.

You may choose to look the other way but you can never again say you did not know.

Human capacity for not thinking about what we're doing is infinite.

This is always history's greatest failure, its inability to believe what it sees, what, almost always, someone sees.

The human eye is a wonderful device. With a little effort, it can fail to see even the most glaring injustice.

No one sees what is before his feet: they scan the tracks of heaven.

They believe that nothing will happen because they have closed their doors.

Ignorance is bliss, or so we're told. Personally, I find ignorance is also destiny.

Awareness without action is worthless.

Too many people get lost in the game of having a good time and being naive about things.

The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice. And because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice shapes our thoughts and deeds.

I always say, if you keep your head in the sand, you don't know where the kick's coming from.

Not ignorance, but ignorance of ignorance, is the death of knowledge.

You do not notice changes in what is always before you.

America cannot be an ostrich with its head in the sand.

Contemporary Americans were so prosperous, so happily distracted by such a richness of vivid entertainments, they were reluctant to have their fun diminished by acknowledging that anything existed with fangs and fierce appetites. If now and then they recognized a wolf, they threw a bone to it and convinced themselves it was a dog.

Ignorance can be improved; willful ignorance and inaction is inexcusable.

I know there are people who say 'just coach'... I don't hear them.

The real danger is a politics that buries its head in the sand.

We are so distracted and focused on what's next, we can fail to see what is actually in front of us.

Opportunity never knocks. It hangs thick in the air all around you. You breathe it unthinking, and dissipate it with your sighs.

A man may take care of a furnace for twenty-five years and still forget to duck his head when he starts going down the cellar stairs.

If your nose is up in the air, you cannot see where you are going.

We want to believe that we can continue doing what we've done for the past thousand years and not worry about the consequences coming back to us.