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The essential difference between the unhappy, neurotic type person and him of great joy is the difference between get and give.

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
Joy
Differences
Give
Neurotic
Persons
Unhappy
Person
Essential
Giving
Essentials
Great
Difference
Type

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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.
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Free man is by necessity insecure, thinking man by necessity uncertain.
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Man is born as a freak of nature, being within nature and yet transcending it. He has to find principles of action and decision-making which replace the principles of instincts.
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What is common to our societies is the development into a managed mass society, with big bureaucracy, managing people. The Russians do it by force. We do it by persuasion.
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If it is true, as I have tried to show, that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence, then any society which excludes, relatively, the development of love, must in the long run perish of its own contradiction with the basic necessities of human nature.
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Hate is a product of the unfulfilled life.
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Society must be organized in such a way that mans social, loving nature is not separated from his social existence, but becomes one with it.
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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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