Erich Fromm Quotations

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. Erich Fromm

Immature love says: "I love you because I need you." Mature love says: "I need you because I love you." Erich Fromm

In love the paradox occurs that two beings become one and yet remain two. Erich Fromm

Love is often nothing but a favorable exchange between two people who get the most of what they can expect, considering their value on the personality market. Erich Fromm

Love is the child of freedom, never that of domination.... Erich Fromm

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

Love is union with somebody, or something, outside oneself, under the condition of retaining the separateness and integrity of one. Erich Fromm

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. Erich Fromm

There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love. Erich Fromm

Erotic love begins with separateness, and ends in oneness. Motherly love begins with oneness, and leads to separateness. Erich Fromm