34 Quotes by Erik H. Erikson

Adolescents need freedom to choose, but not so much freedom that they cannot, in fact, make a choice.

Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

Children love and want to be loved and they very much prefer the joy of accomplishment to the triumph of hateful failure. Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

When established identities become outworn or unfinished ones threaten to remain incomplete, special crises compel men to wage holy wars, by the cruelest means, against those who seem to question or threaten their unsafe ideological bases.

Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters – where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

The fact that human conscience remains partially infantile throughout life is the core of human tragedy.

If there is any responsibility in the cycle of life it must be that one generation owes to the next that strength by which it can come to face ultimate concerns in its own way.

When we looked at the life cycle in our 40s, we looked to old people for wisdom. At 80, though, we look at other 80-year-olds to see who got wise and who not. Lots of old people don’t get wise, but you don’t get wise unless you age.

You can actively flee, then, and you can actively stay put.