"We may feel only anxious (or even sick) for a number of reasons which have no apparent connection with our conscience. Perhaps the most frequent indirect reaction of our conscience to being neglected is a vague and unspecific feeling of guilt and uneasiness, or simply a feeling of tiredness or listlessness. Sometimes such feelings are rationalized as guilt feelings for not having done this or that, when actually the omissions one feels guilty about do not constitute genuine moral problems. But if the genuine though unconscious feeling of guilt has become too strong to be silenced by superficial rationalizations, it finds expression in deeper and more intense anxieties and even in physical or mental sickness. One form of this anxiety is the fear of death; not the normal fear of having to die which every human being experiences in the contemplation of death, but a horror of dying by which people can be possessed constantly. This irrational fear of death results from the failure of having lived; it is the expression of our guilty conscience for having wasted our life and missed the chance of productive use of our capacities. To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Academics from the United StatesPhilosophers from the United StatesAcademics from GermanyPhilosophers from GermanyMarxists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Ch. 4
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Erich_Fromm
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Erich Fromm
1900 – 1980
aus dem Amerikanischen von Liselotte und Ernst Mickel, Rowohlt TB, Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-499-17052-3; Original: "The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness" Holt, Rinehart & Winston, N.Y. 1973
83 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Erich Fromm →
Related Quotes
"What is it that distinguishes man from animals? It is not his upright posture. That was present in the apes long befo…"
"It is often said that the Arabs fled, that they left the country voluntarily, and that they therefore bear the respon…"
"Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action an…"
"Among most Christians the Old Testament is little read in comparison to the New Testament. Furthermore, much of what …"
"The application of psychoanalysis to sociology must definitely guard against the mistake of wanting to give psychoana…"
"One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often."
"Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language …"
"Human history began with an act of disobedience, and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedi…"
"Psychoanalysis, which interprets the human being as a socialized being, and the psychic apparatus as essentially deve…"
"The two most far-reaching critical theories at the beginning of the latest phase of industrial society were those of …"