One is not loved accidentally; ones own power to love produces love - just as being interested makes one interesting. People are concerned with the question of whether they are attractive while they forget that the essence of attractiveness is their own capacity to love. To love a person productively implies to care and to feel responsible for his life, not only for his physical existence but for the growth and development of all his human powers. To love productively is incompatible with being passive, with being an onlooker at the loved persons life; it implies labor and care and the responsibility for his growth.
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About Erich Fromm
Erich Fromm was a 19th-century American american sociologist and psychoanalyst. Erich Seligmann Fromm was a German-American social psychologist, psychoanalyst, sociologist, humanistic philosopher, and democratic socialist. He was a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and settled in the United States. Read more on Wikipedia →
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- Love — Quotes exploring romantic love, compassion, and human connection