Erich Fromm
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"Erich Seligmann Fromm" was a Germans/German social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanism/humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was associated with what became known as the Frankfurt School of critical theory.Funk, Rainer. Erich Fromm: His Life and Ideas. Translators Ian Portman, Manuela Kunkel. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2003. ISBN 0-8264-1519-9, ISBN 978-0-8264-1519-6. [http://books.google.com/books?id=9g_DMoBDpw8C&pg=PA13 p. 13]:"For a second name he was given that of his grandfather on his father's side–Seligmann Pinchas Fromm, although the registry office in Frankfurt does not record him as Erich Pinchas Fromm, but as Erich Seligmann Fromm. Also his parents addressed his mail to 'Erich S. Fromm.'"

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Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one's own self.

Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is.

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.

Man's main task is to give birth to himself.

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.

There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives to his life by the unfolding of his powers.

The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.

Immature love says, 'I love you because I need you.' Mature love says, 'I need you because I love you.'

Sleep is often the only occasion in which man cannot silence his conscience; we forget what we knew in our dream.

Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve.

Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.

To spare oneself from grief at all cost can be achieved only at the price of total detachment, which excludes the ability to experience happiness.

Education makes machines which act like men and produces men who act like machines.

Love is not primarily a relationship to a specific person; it is an attitude, an ordination of character which determines the relatedness of the person to the whole world as a whole, not toward one object of love.

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.

There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.

Man always dies before he is fully born.

There is only one meaning of life: the act of living itself.