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Erich Fromm Quotes and Quotations
Giving is the highest expression of potency. Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others. Immature love says "I love you because I need you." Mature love says "I need you because I love you." The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother and to become fully independent. The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. I think if you ask people what their concept of heaven is, they would say, if they are honest, that it is a big department store, with new things every week - all the money to buy them, and maybe a little more than the neighbours. Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one's identity. Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction. Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man by necessity uncertain. Man absolutely cannot live by himself. Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others. Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others. There is only one meaning of life, the act of living itself. Modern man thinks he loses something-time-when he does not do things quickly. Yet he does not know what to do with the time he gains- except kill it. One of the worst forms of mental suffering is boredom, not knowing what to do with oneself and one's life. Even if man had no monetary, or any other reward, he would be eager to spend his energy in some meaningful way because he could not stand the boredom which inactivity produces. Man is the only animal that can be bored. Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one's identity. Free man is by necessity insecure; thinking man is by necessity uncertain. There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself. Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain. The quest for certainty blocks the search for meaning. Uncertainty is the very condition to impel man to unfold his powers. If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice - to love myself, since I am a human being too. Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love. Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence. Who will tell whether one happy moment of love or the joy of breathing or walking on a bright morning and smelling the fresh air, is not worth all the suffering and effort which life implies. Immature love says "I love you because I need you." Mature love says "I need you because I love you." |