Erich Fromm Quotes

Every man must have the right fearlessly to think independently and express his opinion about what he knows, what he has personally thought about and experienced, and not merely to express with slightly different variations the opinion which has been inculcated in him.

I'm happy to have my own opinion and air it when I think it's necessary.

The proper method for hastening the decay of error, is not, by brute force, or by regulation which is one of the classes of force, to endeavour to reduce men to intellectual uniformity; but on the contrary by teaching every man to think for himself.

I hate to tell people what they should think 'cause I really have an aversion when people tell me what to think.

I am sure it is one's duty as a teacher to try to show boys that no opinions, no tastes, no emotions are worth much unless they are one's own. I suffered acutely as a boy from the lack of being shown this.

I have simply wished to assert the reasoned and independent feeling of my own individuality within a total knowledge of tradition.

As soon as you can say what you think and not what some other person has thought for you, you are on the way to being a remarkable man.

Freedom of speech is useless without freedom of thought.

Freethought is respectable. Freethought is crucial. Freethought needs to be publicized.

The principal fact of life is the free mind.

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.

The most courageous act is still to think for yourself. Aloud.

To put away one's own original thoughts in order to take up a book is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

Think your own thoughts.

A person of any mental quality has ideas of his own. This is common sense.

It is refreshing to be able to express my views without having to toe a party line. It has got me into trouble on the odd occasion, but I am not going to stop saying what I think.

The supreme lesson of any education should be to think for yourself and to be yourself; absent this attainment, education creates dangerous, stupefying conformity.

I've never been resigned to ready-made ideas as I was to ready-made clothes, perhaps because although I couldn't sew, I could think.

Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.

Do not allow the Church or the State to govern your thought or dictate your judgment.

Never prevent men from forming judgments according to their intellect

Freedom of speech and freedom of action are meaningless without freedom to think. And there is no freedom of thought without doubt.

All my life, I've had a fear of being told what to say, so I'm not telling people what to think. I'm encouraging them to say what they think.

From the moment we are born, people tell us that the world is like this and like that, this way, that way. It is natural that - for a certain period of time - we end up believing what we are told. But we must soon push these ideas aside and discover our own way of living reality.

You say that my way of thinking cannot be tolerated? What of it? The man who alters his way of thinking to suit othere is a fool. My way of thinking is the result of my reflections. It is part of my inner being,the way I am made. I do not contradict them, and would not even if I wished to. For my system, which you disapprove of is also my greatest comfort in life, the source of all my happiness -it means more to me than my life itself.