A Quote by Erich Fromm

When blended with sexuality, the death instinct is transformed into more harmless impulses expressed in sadism or masochism.

Erich Fromm

Quote Topics

Blended Death Expressed Harmless Impulses Instinct Masochism More Sadism Sexuality Transformed

Quote Author

Erich Fromm
American - Psychologist
March 23, 1900 - March 18, 1980

Suicides are timid murderers. Masochism instead of Sadism.

Cesare Pavese

Lesbians, homosexuals, masochism, sadism are not perversions. Actually, there are only two perversions: hockey on grass and ballet on ice.

Faina Ranevskaya

Pornography is the essential sexuality of male power: of hate, of ownership, of hierarchy; of sadism, of dominance.

Andrea Dworkin

Nostalgia is masochism and masochism is something masochists love to share.

Andrei Codrescu

Compassion is the antitoxin of the soul: where there is compassion even the most poisonous impulses remain relatively harmless.

Eric Hoffer

Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting.

Bertrand Russell

I sometimes like the situation that forces you to rely on your instinct and impulses.

Donna Murphy

the anxiety arising from the perpetual activity of the death instinct, though never eliminated, is counteracted and kept at bay by the power of the life instinct.

Melanie Klein

I am intrigued by the basics of human life, by our vulnerability, our desires, our sexuality - as far as I am concerned, character is expressed through sexuality. Art is able to represent human existence stripped to its essence by showing us the naked human body.

Thomas Koerfer

For me, it's not about masochism to talk about death. For me, it's about observing life through death, from the last point of it.

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

A family is too frail a vessel to contain the risks of all the warring impulses expressed when such a group meets on common ground.

Pat Conroy

Sexuality is a human instinct as natural as hunger or thirst.

Alexandra Kollontai

A successful creative expression is one in which the person who has expressed it was transformed for having encountered it

Mark Nepo

Hatred can be nurtured anywhere, idealism can be perverted into sadism anywhere. If hatred and sadism combine with modern technology the inferno could erupt anew anywhere.

Simon Wiesenthal

I realized that a dancer's life is very short and I had so much of a creative energy in me that I needed outlets to do other things so that's when I started acting more and it all kind of blended together. When you're on stage you're acting and you're dancing, it started blended together now.