Art Of Loving Erich Fromm Quotes & Sayings

The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety. — Erich Fromm

Intellect in its effort to explain Love got stuck in the mud like an ass. Love alone could explain love and loving. — Rumi

I think the extremes are something that's really interesting to see coalesce in movies. — John Waters

As a Christian I have hope not just for this life but for Heaven and the life to come. And many of those people who died this past week are in Heaven right now. And they wouldn't want to come back; it's so glorious and so wonderful. And that's the hope for all of us who put our faith in God. I pray that you will have this hope in your heart. — Billy Graham

In the West, it is the opposite, like you are using these practices [meditation and yoga ] to further your ego by being more productive, being more this, and getting more out of your work and earning more money. In the East, the whole idea is that you are dissolving your essence through these practices. — Karan Bajaj

Most people are not even aware of their need to conform. They live under the illusion that they follow their own ideas and inclinations, that they are individualists, that they have arrived at their opinion as the result of their own thinking - and that it just happens that their ideas are the same as this of the majority. (p.11) — Erich Fromm

To be fully awake is the condition for not being bored, or being boring - and indeed, not to be bored or boring is one of the main conditions for loving. To be active in thought, feeling, with one's eyes and ears, throughout the day, to avoid inner laziness, be it in the form of being receptive, hoarding, or plain wasting one's time, is an indispensable condition for the practice of the art of loving. — Erich Fromm

What does one person give to another? He gives of himself, of the most precious he has, he gives of his life. This does not necessarily mean that he sacrifices his life for the other - but that he gives him of that which is alive in him; he gives him of his joy, of his interest, of his understanding, of his knowledge, of his humor, of his sadness
of all expressions and manifestations of that which is alive in him. In thus giving of his life, he enriches the other person, he enhances the other's sense of aliveness by enhancing his own sense of aliveness. He does not give in order to receive; giving is in itself exquisite joy. But in giving he cannot help bringing something to life in the other person, and this which is brought to life reflects back to him. — Erich Fromm

I love in you everybody, I love through you the world, I love in you also myself. — Erich Fromm

Also in contemporary Western society the union with the group is the prevalent way of overcoming separateness. It is a union which the individual self disappears to a large extent, and where the aim is to belong to the heard. If I am like everybody else, if I have no feeling or thoughts which make me different, if I conform in custom, dress, ideas, to the pattern of the group, I am saved: saved from the frightening experience of aloneness. — Erich Fromm

I worked for a big department store, and strangely, on my first day, they put me in charge of Christmas wrapping. I didn't know how to wrap a present and make it not look like it fell off a truck. — Joel Edgerton

In spite of the deep-seated craving for love, almost everything else is considered to be more important than love: success, prestige, money, power-almost all our energy is used for the learning of how to achieve these aims, and almost none to learn the art of loving.
Could it be that only those things are considered worthy of being learned with which one can earn money or prestige, and that love, which "only" profits the soul, but is profitless in the modern sense, is a luxury we have no right to spend energy on? — Erich Fromm

The faculty to think objectively is reason; the emotional attitude behind reason is that of humility. To be objective, to use one's reason, is possible only if one has achieved an attitude of humility, if one has emerged from the dreams of omniscience and omnipotence which one has as a child. Love, being dependent on the relative absence of narcissism, requires the developement of humility, objectivity and reason.
I must try to see the difference between my picture of a person and his behavior, as it is narcissistically distorted, and the person's reality as it exists regardless of my interests, needs and fears. — Erich Fromm

Children have two basic needs, writes Erich Fromm in the Art of Loving: they need both milk and honey from their parents. Milk symbolizes the care given to physical needs ... Honey symbolizes the sweetness of life, that special quality that makes life sing with enjoyment for all it holds. Gromm says, "Most parents are capable of giving milk, but only a minority of giving honey, too." To give honey, one must love honey and have it to give. — Gladys M. Hunt

One more point must be made with regard to the general conditions of learning an art. One does not begin to learn an art directly, but indirectly, as it were. One must learn a great number of other - and often seemingly disconnected things - before one starts with the art itself. An apprentice in carpentry begins by learning how to plane wood; an apprentice in the art of piano playing begins by practicing scales; an apprentice in the Zen art of archery begins by doing breathing exercises. 1 If one wants to become a master in any art, one's whole life must be devoted to it, or at least related to it. One's own person becomes an instrument in the practice of the art, and must be kept fit, according to the specific functions it has to fulfill. With regard to the art of loving, this means that anyone who aspires to become a master in this art must begin by practicing discipline, concentration and patience throughout every phase of his life. — Erich Fromm

Poverty is a plague against which humanity must fight without cease. — Pope Benedict XVI

Time passes and everything gets bigger except us. — Stephen King