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I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow. We are actually afraid to be intimate, with people - many people even with their wives and husbands.

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
Would
Relationships
People
Husband
Afraid
Wife
Husbands
Actually
Wives
Social
Relatively
Many
Shallow
Even
Intimate

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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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If faith cannot be reconciled with rational thinking, it has to be eliminated as an anachronistic remnant of earlier stages of culture and replaced by science dealing with facts and theories which are intelligible and can be validated.
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The root of the word education is e-ducere, literally, to lead forth, or to bring out something which is potentially present.
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I think if you ask people what their concept of heaven is, they would say, if they are honest, that it is a big department store, with new things every week - all the money to buy them, and maybe a little more than the neighbours.
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When blended with sexuality, the death instinct is transformed into more harmless impulses expressed in sadism or masochism.
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Not he who has much is rich, but he who gives much.
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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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Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.
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I only wish to be the fountain of love from which you drink, every drop promising eternal passion.
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Is love an art? Then it requires knowledge and effort. Love is not a spontaneous feeling, a thing that you fall into, but is something that requires thought, knowledge, care, giving, and respect. And it is something that is rare and difficult to find in capitalism, which commodifies human activity.
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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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FORTITUDE IS THE CAPACITY TO SAY NO WHEN THE WORLD WANTS TO HEAR 'YES'
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Just as love is an orientation which refers to all objects and is incompatible with the restriction to one object, so is reason a human faculty which must embrace the whole of the world with which man is confronted.
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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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Love is an active power in man a power which breaks through the walls which separate man from his fellow men, which unite him with others love makes him overcome the sense of isolation and separateness, yet it permits him to be himself, to retain his integrity.
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The narcissistic, the domineering, the possessive woman can succeed in being a loving mother as long as the child is small. Only the really loving woman, the woman who is happier in giving than in taking, who is firmly rooted in her own existence, can be a loving mother when the child is in the process of separation.
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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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Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one's country which is not part of one's love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship.
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