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The most important misunderstanding seems to me to lie in a confusion between the human necessities which I consider part of human nature, and the human necessities as they appear as drives, needs, passions, etc., in any given historical period.

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
Human
Consider
Misunderstanding
Humans
Periods
Drives
Important
Passion
Etc
Needs
Lying
Passions
Given
Confusion
Nature
Appear
Part
Period
Seems
Historical
Necessities

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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.
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Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
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Beyond the element of giving, the active characteristic of love becomes evident in the fact that it always implies certain basic elements, common to all forms of love. These are care, responsability, respect and knowledge
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Love is the only way of knowledge, which in the act of union answers my quest. In the act of loving, of giving myself, in the act of penetrating the other person, I find myself, I discover myself, I discover us both, I discover man.
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Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.
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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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The lust for power is not rooted in strength but in weakness.
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Every society by its own practice of living and by the mode of relatedness, of feelings, and perceiving, develops a system of categories which determines the forms of awareness.
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The whole life of the individual is nothing but the process of giving birth to himself indeed, we should be fully born when we die.
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Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
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The revolutionary and critical thinker is in a certain way always outside of his society while of course he is at the same time also in it.
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According to me [Sigmund ] Freud did not notice that the dream expresses the inner experiences in a symbolic form,resembling in that, poetry or other art forms.
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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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What is for me socialism is exactly the opposite of a bureaucratically-managed culture.
Erich Fromm
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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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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 paradoxical and tragic situation of man is that his conscience is weakest when he needs it most.
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A dream is a microscope through which we look at the hidden occurrences in our soul.
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Independent of others and in concert with others, your main task in life is to do what you can best do and become what you can potentially be.
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Power on the one side, fear on the other, are always the buttresses on which irrational authority is built.
Erich Fromm