3 Erich Fromm Quotes on Connection

Erich Fromm quotes on connection

10. The kind of relatedness to the world may be noble or trivial, but even being related to the basest kind of pattern is immensely preferable to being alone.

38. In spite of the universalistic spirit of the monotheistic Western religions and of the progressive political concepts that are expressed in the idea 'that all men are created equal,' love for mankind has not become a common experience. Love for mankind is looked upon as an achievement which, at best, follows love for an individual or as an abstract concept to be realized only in the future. But love for man cannot be separated from love for one individual. To love one person productively means to be related to his human core, to him as representing mankind. Love for one individual, in so far as it is divorced from love for man, can refer only to the superficial and to the accidental; of necessity it remains shallow.

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