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All genuine ideals have one thing in common: they express the desire for something which is not yet accomplished but which is desirable for the purpose of the growth and happiness of the individual.

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
Thing
Express
Something
Ideals
Growth
Purpose
Common
Happiness
Desirable
Desire
Accomplished
Individual
Genuine

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Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
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Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
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We are all equal in the sense that no man must mean - must be - the means for the purposes of another man but each individual is an end in itself.
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This Marxian sentence, repeated to the point of boredom, is misinterpreted. In reality [Karl] Marx was a religious man.
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The human passions transform man from a mere thing into a hero, into a being that in spite of tremendous handicaps tries to make sense of life.
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[Sigmund ] Freud did not under-stand that the dream is a highly creative act, written in the universal language of symbolism, and only secondarily does censorship distort those parts that the subject refuses to accept even in sleep.
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Actually, if you take the average American, and studies have shown that, he is really concerned only with private affairs that is to say, with his health, his money and family affairs.
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In our enthusiasm to dominate nature and to produce more material good - goods - we have transformed means into ends.
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Man always dies before he is fully born.
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A society whose principles are acquisition, profit, and property produces a social character oriented around having, and once the dominant pattern is established, nobody wants to be an outsider, or indeed an outcast in order to avoid this risk everybody adapts to the majority, who have in common only their mutual antagonism.
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Paradoxically, the ability to be alone is the condition for the ability to love.
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We substitute, or we rather hide, this fear of real intimacy by a superficial kind of friendliness, which is quite nice, but nevertheless, very shallow.
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There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.
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I think our danger is that we talk one thing, and we feel and act another thing.
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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.
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Man's biological weakness is the condition of human culture.
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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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It is a tragedy that most of us die before we have begun to live.
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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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