"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead"
About this Quote
The 20th-century diagnosis is colder and more brutal. “Man is dead” doesn’t mean bodies; it means the erosion of the inner person as a meaningful center of experience. Fromm is writing in the shadow of total war, mass propaganda, fascism and Stalinism, and the rise of the corporate-consumer order. His subtext is that modernity didn’t merely remove a divine father figure; it produced systems that hollow out individuality and conscience. The human being becomes an instrument: voter, worker, consumer, data point. If the 19th century lost God and panicked, the 20th century loses the self and barely notices.
The line also smuggles in Fromm’s signature moral critique of “having” over “being.” Without a living sense of self - capable of love, autonomy, and genuine relatedness - freedom becomes a burden people escape into conformity. That’s why the phrasing lands: it’s not elegiac, it’s accusatory. Fromm isn’t mourning a vanished faith; he’s warning that the modern world can keep all its technology and productivity and still commit a quieter extinction: the death of human aliveness.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Sane Society (Erich Fromm, 1955)
Evidence: In spite of increasing production and comfort, man loses more and more the sense of self, feels that his life is meaningless, even though such a feeling is largely unconscious. In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. (Chapter 9 ("Summary , Conclusion"), p. 360 (page number varies by edition)). This wording (including the lead-in sentence) is attributed to Erich Fromm in his book The Sane Society (1955), in Chapter 9: “Summary , Conclusion,” per Wikiquote. Many quote sites circulate only the second sentence and often replace the semicolon with a period, but the primary-source phrasing is typically given with a semicolon and appears as part of a longer passage. Open Library lists a 1955 Rinehart edition of The Sane Society with 370 pages, consistent with the quote commonly being located near the end of the book (often cited around p. 360 in later printings). Other candidates (1) The Vanishing Evangelical (Calvin Miller, 2013) compilation95.2% ... In the nineteenth century, the problem was that God is dead; in the twentieth century, the problem is that man is... |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Fromm, Erich. (2026, February 11). In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-nineteenth-century-the-problem-was-that-31091/
Chicago Style
Fromm, Erich. "In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead." FixQuotes. February 11, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-nineteenth-century-the-problem-was-that-31091/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead." FixQuotes, 11 Feb. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/in-the-nineteenth-century-the-problem-was-that-31091/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.
