"Immature love says: 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says 'I need you because I love you.'"
"Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as love. Love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing."
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Source: Erich Fromm (2013). “The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness”, p.37, Open Road Media
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