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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.

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
Create
Inasmuch
Choices
Inexplicable
Hate
Transcend
Men
Destroy
Love
Driven
Thus
Ultimate
Choice

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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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When blended with sexuality, the death instinct is transformed into more harmless impulses expressed in sadism or masochism.
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Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
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Man today being concerned with production and consumption as ends in themselves, has very little engergy time to devote himself to the true religious experience.
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Love is hot a higher power which descends upon mn nor a duty which is imposed upon him it is his own power by which he relates himself to the world and makes it truly his.
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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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To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.
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Finally one arrives at this: the state of sleep has an ambiguous function in sleep, the lack of contact with the culture brings out the worst and also the best in us.
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We are concerned with things. We are concerned with success. We are concerned with money. We are concerned with instrumentalities.
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If a person loves only one other person and is indifferent to all others, his love is not love but a symbiotic attachment, or an enlarged egotism.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
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Mobilizing the love of life is the only force that can defeat the love for the dead.
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