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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.

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
Others
Refuge
Wells
Dread
Refuges
Well
Customs
Dreads
Men
Absurd
Connects
However
Degrading
Belief
Custom
Religion
Nationalism
Individual
Isolation

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Integrity simply means a willingness not to violate one's identity, in the many ways in which such violation is possible.
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Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous.
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Having lost religious faith and the humanistic values bound up with it, he [man] concentrated on technical and material values and lost the capacity for deep emotional experiences, for the joy and sadness that accompany them.
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In fact, there are very important writings of Marx which are not even translated into English.
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Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.
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The sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology.
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The most important factor for the development of the individual is the structure and the values of the society into which he was born.
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Infantile love follows the principle: I love because I am loved. Mature love follows the principle: I am loved because I love. Immature love says: I love you because I need you. Mature love says: I need you because I love you.
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Freedom does not mean license.
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If you take a salesman, who sells a useless commodity, he feels like a fraud.
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I want to mention that Marx shares something, if you don't mind the comparison, with the Old Testament: many people talk about him, but nobody has read him.
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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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We talk a great deal about Russia today, and I'm afraid that in twenty years, we and Russia will be more similar than different.
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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.
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Our main way of relating ourselves to others is like things relate themselves to things on the market. We want to exchange our own personality - or as one says sometimes, our personality package - for something.
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Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.
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I believe that the experience of love is the most human and humanizing act that it is given to man to enjoy and that it, like reason, makes no sense if conceived in a partial way.
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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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Boredom is nothing but the experience of a paralysis of our productive powers and the sense of unaliveness. Among the evils of life, there are few which are as painful as boredom, and consequently every attempt is made to avoid it.
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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.
Erich Fromm