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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?

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
People
Admired
Protected
Extent
Main
Large
Question
Loved
Love
Approved

More quotes by Erich Fromm

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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.
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There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.
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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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Freedom does not mean license.
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Man may be defined as the animal that can say ''I,'' that can be aware of himself as a separate entity.
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Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Love is not a spontaneous feeling, a thing that you fall into, but is something that requires thought, knowledge, care, giving, and respect. And it is something that is rare and difficult to find in capitalism, which commodifies human activity.
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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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If I am what I have and if I lose what I have who then am I?
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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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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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To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops.
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Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
Erich Fromm
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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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The most important influence on a child is the character of its parents, rather than this or that single event.
Erich Fromm
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Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
Erich Fromm
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For [Karl] Marx what counts is man. He is the root of everythingwhile for capitalism, the aim are things, profit, and man is only a means to gain them. As an authentically religious individual, Marx could not be other than against religion.
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Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market.
Erich Fromm
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The state of sleep is a state of freedom in which man is not occupied with the manipulation of the outside world.
Erich Fromm
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The experience of separateness arouses anxiety it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety.
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The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become ''Golems',' they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life.
Erich Fromm