"Man does not only sell commodities, he sells himself and feels himself to be a commodity."
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Quote collection
Erich Fromm quotes (page 7 of 22)
426 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"That millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people sane."
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"The only truly affluent are those who do not want more than they have."
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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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"I think what democracy means today, in reality, is to a large extent, manipulated consent - not forced consent, manipulated consent - and manipulated more and more with the help of Madison Avenue."
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"That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate."
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"Giving is the highest expression of potency. In the very act of giving, I experience my strength, my wealth, my power. This experience of heightened vitality and potency fills me with joy. I experience myself as overflowing, spending, alive, hence as joyous."
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"Equality today means ‘sameness’, rather than ‘oneness’."
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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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"There is nothing inhuman, evil, or irrational which does not give some comfort, provided it is shared by a group."
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"The sick individual finds himself at home with all other similarly sick individuals. The whole culture is geared to this kind of pathology. The result is that the average individual does not experience the separateness and isolation the fully schizophrenic person feels. He feels at ease among those who suffer from the same deformation; in fact, it is the fully sane person who feels isolated in the insane society - and he may suffer so much from the incapacity to communicate that it is he who may become psychotic."
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"Human history began with an act of disobedience and it is not unlikely that it will be terminated by an act of obedience."
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"The danger of the past was that men became slaves. The danger of the future is that men may become robots. True enough, robots do not rebel. But given man's nature, robots cannot live and remain sane, they become ''Golems',' they will destroy their world and themselves because they cannot stand any longer the boredom of a meaningless life."
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"There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself."
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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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"Love of others and love of ourselves are not alternatives. On the contrary, an attitude of love towards themselves will be found in all those who are capable of loving others."
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"Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision."
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"If it is a virtue to love my neighbor as a human being, it must be a virtue - and not a vice - to love myself, since I am a human being too."
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"The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given human nature, but result from the social process which creates man."
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"In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two."
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