Erich Fromm The Art Of Loving Quotes & Sayings

(R)eality TV (is) a medium dedicated to the proposition that with the help of judicious editing, carefully chosen half-wits can hold the attention of millions of their fellow half-wits for weeks on end. — Terry Teachout

a proof that good books, no more than good men, do always survive the bad. — Henry Fielding

We suffer with those who have disappeared, those who have had to flee their homes, and those who have been tortured. — Oscar Romero

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

You have to have the fighting spirit. You have to force moves and take chances — Bobby Fischer

I suppose I have a special talent for showing up where I shouldn't be. — Susan Ee

Do you know why most survivors of the Holocaust are vegan? It's because they know what it's like to be treated like an animal. — Chuck Palahniuk

Chicago has very few public spaces where people are encouraged to get together. It's partly to prevent riots, and also to segregate a city with a history of racial segregation. — Aleksandar Hemon

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

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

More than two thousand five hundred years ago. We have no way of knowing who painted this wall, but he speaks to us across all those centuries. Veii may have been defeated, but the spirit of these people speaks to us and triumphs over time. — Lillian Marek

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

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

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

Looks like my superpowers don't come with automatic manicures, thank heaven. I hate long nails. — Jennifer Silverwood

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

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

We must be willing to place all that we have
not just our possessions (they may be the easiest things of all to give up), but also our ambition and pride and stubbornness and vanity
we must place it all on the altar of God, kneel there in silent submission, and willingly walk away. — Jeffrey R. Holland

All men are by nature free; you have therefore an undoubted liberty to depart whenever you please, but will have many and great difficulties to encounter in passing the frontiers. — Voltaire

Our ordinary abilities will never worship God unless they are transformed by the indwelling Son of God. — Oswald Chambers