Erik Erikson

You see a child play, and it is so close to seeing an artist paint, for in play a child says things…

— Erik Erikson

Mans true taproots are nourished in the sequence of generations, and he loses his taproots in disrupted developmental time, not in abandoned…

— Erik Erikson

The growing child must derive a vitalizing sense of reality from the awareness that his individual way of mastering experience (his ego…

— Erik Erikson

Do not mistake a child for his symptom.

— Erik Erikson

Doubt is the brother of shame.

— Erik Erikson

The psychoanalytic method is essentially a historical method.

— Erik Erikson

We cannot leave history entirely to nonclinical observers and to professional historians.

— Erik Erikson

“The richest and fullest lives attempt to achieve an inner balance between three realms: work, love and play.”

— Erik Erikson

“It's a long haul bringing up our children to be good; you have to keep doing that — bring them up —…

— Erik Erikson

I am what survives of me.

— Erik Erikson

Let us face it: 'deep down' nobody in his right mind can visualize his own existence without assuming that he has always…

— Erik Erikson

Will, therefore, is the unbroken determination to exercise free choice as well as self-restraint, in spite of the unavoidable experience of shame…

— Erik Erikson

Men have always shown a dim knowledge of their better potentialities by paying homage to those purest leaders who taught the simplest…

— Erik Erikson

Personality, too, is destiny.

— Erik Erikson

He who is ashamed would like to force the world not to look at him, not to notice his exposure. He would…

— Erik Erikson

There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding, which constitutes a new hope and a new…

— Erik Erikson

There is in every child at every stage a new miracle of vigorous unfolding.

— Erik Erikson

If there is any responsibility in the cycle of life it must be that one generation owes to the next that strength…

— Erik Erikson

Children cannot be fooled by empty praise and condescending encouragement. They may have to accept artificial bolstering of their self-esteem in lieu…

— Erik Erikson

Every adult, whether he is a follower or a leader, a member of a mass or of an elite, was once a…

— Erik Erikson

The playing adult steps sideward into another reality; the playing child advances forward to new stages of mastery.

— Erik Erikson

You've got to learn to accept the law of life, and face the fact that we disintegrate slowly.

— Erik Erikson

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

— Erik Erikson

Parents must not only have certain ways of guiding by prohibition and permission, they must also be able to represent to the…

— Erik Erikson

In the evaluation of the dominant moods of any historical period it is important to hold fast to the fact that there…

— Erik Erikson