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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.

— Erik Erikson The Problem of Ego Identity (1956)

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More quotes by Erik Erikson

Healthy children will not fear life if their elders have integrity enough not to fear death.

Childhood and Society (1950)

Indeed, in the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.

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

All world-images are apt to become corrupt when left to ecclesiastic bureaucracies. But this does not make the formation of world-images expendable.

Gandhi's Truth : On the Origins of Militant Nonviolence (1969)

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.

Childhood and Society (1950)

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Erik Erikson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.