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Love isn't something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience, faith, and the overcoming of narcissism. It isn't a feeling, it is a practice.

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
Faith
Concentration
Natural
Patience
Feelings
Overcoming
Something
Requires
Love
Discipline
Feeling
Practice
Rather
Narcissism

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The essential difference between the unhappy, neurotic type person and him of great joy is the difference between get and give.
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Freedom does not mean license.
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Respect is not fear and awe it...[is]the ability to see a person as he is, to be aware of his unique individuality. Respect, thus, implies the absence of exploitation. I want the loved person to grow and unfold for his own sake, and in his own ways, and not for the purpose of serving me.
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When an individual is awake, almost all he does and says is inspired by the model of behavior that the society imposes,even without his being aware of it.
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I would say, compared with the 19th century, compared with most previous history, this is as good or better a society than any which man has ever made. But that doesn't mean it is such a good one.
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A new question has arisen in modern man's mind, the question, namely, whether life is worth living...No sensible answer can be given to the question...because the question does not make any sense.
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We have faith in the potentialities of others, of ourselves, and of mankind because, and only to the degree to which, we have experienced the growth of our own potentialities, the reality of growth in ourselves, the strength of our own power of reason and love.
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Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
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Man absolutely cannot live by himself.
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If you take a salesman, who sells a useless commodity, he feels like a fraud.
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It is true that one has to think first and then to act - but it's also true that if one has no possibility of acting, one's thinking kind of becomes empty and stupid.
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We talk about equality, about happiness, about freedom - and about the spiritual values of religion, and about God - and in our daily life, we act on principles which are different, and partly contradictory.
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Religion and nationalism, as well as any custom and any belief however absurd and degrading, if it only connects the individual with others, are refuges from what man most dreads: isolation.
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The average American has separated his private life from his existence as a member of his society, and leaves that to the specialists in the government to take care of.
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I would say love is something everybody talks about, and the need for love is one of the most basic needs of man, namely the experience of union with another being - of becoming one with another being.
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To take the difficulties, setbacks and sorrows of life as a challenge to overcome makes us stronger, rather than unjust punishment which should not happen to us, requires faith and courage.
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In times of change, learners inherit the earth
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It is notorious that no war between countries elicits as much hate and cruelty as civil war, in which there is no lack of acquaintance between the two warring sides.
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Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.
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