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When an individual is awake, almost all he does and says is inspired by the model of behavior that the society imposes,even without his being aware of it.

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
Behavior
Says
Almost
Imposes
Society
Awake
Individual
Model
Doe
Aware
Without
Inspired
Even
Models

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It is true that one has to think first and then to act - but it's also true that if one has no possibility of acting, one's thinking kind of becomes empty and stupid.
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Can freedom become a burden, too heavy for man to bear, something he tries to escape from?..Is there not also, perhaps, besides an innate desire for freedom, an instinctive wish for submission?
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Optimism is an alienated form of faith, pessimism an alienated form of despair.
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The experience of separateness arouses anxiety it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety.
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I believe that if an individual is not on the path to transcending his society and seeing in what way it furthers or impedes the development of human potential, he cannot enter into intimate contact with his humanity.
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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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To hope means to be ready at every moment for that which is not yet born, and yet not become desperate if there is no birth in our lifetime.
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While we teach knowledge, we are losing that teaching which is the most important one for human development: the teaching which can only be given by the simple presence of a mature, loving person.
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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.
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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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To live is to be born every minute. Death occurs when birth stops.
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It seems that great minds a hundred years ago saw what would happen today or tomorrow, while we to whom it is happening blind ourselves in order not to be disturbed in our daily routine.
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If I am attached to another person because I cannot stand on my own two feet, he or she may be a life saver, but the relationship is not one of love.
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Man absolutely cannot live by himself.
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For [Sigmund ] Freud, the manifest dream, that is that which we remember after waking,is like a code message, that can be interpreted, provided the right key is avail-able, for example the method of free association.
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Both dreams and myths are important communications from ourselves to ourselves. If we do not understand the language in which they are written, we miss a great deal of what we know and tell ourselves in those hours when we are not busy manipulating the outside world.
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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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Finally one arrives at this: the state of sleep has an ambiguous function in sleep, the lack of contact with the culture brings out the worst and also the best in us.
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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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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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