Erich Fromm Quotes

When I sit down to write a novel, I am exploring my own relationship with God, with the struggle between good and evil, my own purpose.

Everywhere the human soul stands between a hemisphere of light and another of darkness; on the confines of the two everlasting empires, necessity and free will.

Do what you will, this world's a fiction and is made up of contradiction.

This was not a man who wanted to give up his mate. This was a man trying to do the honorable thing—and give her a choice, no matter hiw much it cost him.

The Hebrew word, the word timshel - 'Thou mayest' - that gives a choice. It might be the most important word in the world. That says the way is open...Why, that makes a man great...He can choose his course and fight it through and win...I have a new love for that glittering instrument, the human soul. It is a lovely and unique thing in the universe. It is always attacked and never destroyed - because 'Thou mayest'. ch 24

he used to think that he wanted to be good, he wanted to be kind, he wanted to be brave and wise, but it was all pretty difficult. He wanted to be loved, too, if he could fit it in.

One never learns how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her~is it ever the right choice? Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if so is he not a devil?

God uses the opposite situation of each fruit to allow us a choice. You can't claim to be good if you have never been tempted to be bad.

Every day the choice is presented to us, to live up to the spirit that is in us, or deny it.

Can love and peace live in the same heart? Youth is unhappy because it is faced with this terrible choice; love without peace, or peace without love.

We all have a dark place in us. It's what we do with it and the choice we make.

We can now destroy or we can cherish-the choice is ours.

We have a choice every day between fear and love.

A man must either imitate the vicious or hate them.

Which would prove I'm a monster, Arnie? Sacrificing the people I love for the fight? Or walking away from the fight to save the people i love?

That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.

Nothing wrong with changing your mind. That's a very unwaffling thing to say: "Nothing wrong..." Who am I to say that there's nothing wrong with it? Maybe something is wrong with changing your mind. Anyway, love is very, very difficult. I love. But probably because I hate myself on some deep, sick level, it makes loving difficult. But I do try.

Attitude determines choice, and choice determines results. All that we are, and all that we can become has indeed been left unto us.

To forgive or not to forgive... are those my only choices?

I turned my back on the devil, turned my back on the angel too.

The day Henry made a choice... that some men are just too interesting to die.

Life is more a matter of choosing than knowing. He could never know the eventual destination of his path, but he could always choose in which direction to take each step.

In every moment we make a decision -- whether conscious or unconscious. Will I choose to open my heart, send love, withhold judgment and thus free myself from fear? Or will I close my heart, project fear instead of extending love, judge others, and thus bind myself to fear? The choice is mine and mine alone.

There seemed to be three choices: to give up trying to love anyone, to stop being selfish, or to learn to love a person while continuing to be selfish.