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The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, who has overcome his egocentricity.

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
Existence
Opposition
Free
Overcome
Real
Ego
Men
Bounds
Overcoming
Principle
Egocentricity
Whose
Structured
Principles
Bound

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Modern capitalism needs men who cooperate smoothly and in large numbers who want to consume more and more and whose tastes are standardized and can be easily influenced and anticipated ... what is the outcome? Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow man and from nature.
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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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The customer is an object to be manipulated, not a concrete person whose aims the businessman is interested to satisfy.
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Once they are through the process of education, most people lose the capacity of wondering, of being surprised. They feel they ought to know everything, and hence that it is a sign of ignorance to be surprised or puzzled by anything.
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The ordinary man with extraordinary power is the chief danger for mankind - not the fiend or the sadist.
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The affirmation of one's own life, happiness, growth and freedom, is rooted in one's capacity to love.
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Love is a power which produces love.
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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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Modern man is alienated from himself, from his fellow men, and from nature. He has been transformed into a commodity, experiences his life forces as an investment which must bring him the maximum profit obtainable under existing market conditions.
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Society must be organized in such a way that mans social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it.
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For [Sigmund ] Freud, the manifest dream, that is that which we remember after waking,is like a code message, that can be interpreted, provided the right key is avail-able, for example the method of free association.
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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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It is a tragedy that most of us die before we have begun to live.
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The only concern which I have today is that we have a policy, a foreign policy, which enables us to avoid a catastrophe which, if one understands it properly, is indescribable.
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Jewish legend says that the world rests on 36 just men: only thirty six, but their moral strength is immense.
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Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.
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We are not on the way to greater individualism, but are becoming an increasingly manipulated mass civilization.
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