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The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.

Erich Fromm

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Erich Fromm
Age: 79 †
Born: 1900
Born: March 23
Died: 1980
Died: March 18
Philosopher
Psychoanalyst
Psychologist
Sociologist
University Teacher
Writer
Frankfurt/Main
Ordinary
Danger
Mankind
Fear
Sadist
Power
Fiend
Men
Chief
Chiefs
Extraordinary

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Giving is the highest expression of potency.
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What is common to our societies is the development into a managed mass society, with big bureaucracy, managing people. The Russians do it by force. We do it by persuasion.
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There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
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I believe that man is the product of natural evolution that is born from the conflict of being a prisoner and separated from nature, and from the need to find unity and harmony with it.
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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.
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Freedom does not mean license.
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A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism.
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There is only one reality: the act of feeling ourselves in the process of making choices.
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The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have.
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All genuine ideals have one thing in common: they express the desire for something which is not yet accomplished but which is desirable for the purpose of the growth and happiness of the individual.
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To be concentrated means to live fully in the present.
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I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow. We are actually afraid to be intimate, with people - many people even with their wives and husbands.
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This Marxian sentence, repeated to the point of boredom, is misinterpreted. In reality [Karl] Marx was a religious man.
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The existential split in man would be unbearable could he not establish a sense of unity within himself and with the natural and human world outside.
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Our society is run by a managerial bureaucracy, by professional politicians people are motivated by mass suggestion, their aim is producing more and consuming more, as purposes in themselves.
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Greedhas no satiation point, since its consummation does not fill the inner emptiness, boredom, loneliness, and depression it is meant to overcome.
Erich Fromm
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Like the effect of advertising upon the customer, the methods of political propaganda tend to increase the feeling of insignificance of the individual voter.
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The fact is that the culture does not have only positive effects on our intellectual and moral functions but also negative effects.
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Loving becomes, and the ability to love, becomes one of the most important things in life.
Erich Fromm
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People do not see that the main question is not : Am I loved? which is to a large extent the question : Am I approved of? Am I protected? Am I admired? The main question is: Can I love?
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