7 Erich Fromm phrases about love

7 Erich Fromm phrases about love

The legacy in the love sentences of Erich Fromm remains to encourage us today. Because if we have to acknowledge something, it's not always simple to love. It needs bravery, action, engagement, and a strong feeling of humility and accountability. Few writers instructed us as much as Fromm himself about the topic.

The professor, poet and activist for peace, Thich Nhat Hahn, once said love without understanding love hurts the individual we love. The most complicated aspect of all this is that this process is often seen as passive. For many, the crush represents the side effect of that crush in which one is rendered, almost paralyzed; where there is no other choice but to let us go, than to expect the loved one to reciprocate, nurture and validate in an act without energy, creativity, and reciprocity.

Intelligently and thoroughly loving is the result of a deliberate act, a purpose that demands excellence and at the same time, demands it. We will derive in the most absolute frustration if we limit ourselves to being carried away, to act passively, to wait for the other to say, the other to do, the other to guess and correspond to me. This is what Erich Fromm, the social psychologist, psychoanalyst, and German philosopher, taught us in his book "The art of love," and these are a sequence of sentences that sum up this exceptional job that is always worth returning to.

Erich Fromm phrases about love

The art of love» is not a distinct work within Erich Fromm's vast and exciting intellectual heritage. In fact, it is a continuation of another novel, "Fear of Liberty." He had already discussed multiple elements of human nature in the latter and therefore felt the need to deepen that fundamental and essential dimension for individuals, such as love.

Therefore, if there is something I was looking for above all else, it was to educate us that love is an art and that as such it requires an exquisite mastery of both theory and practice, because, and this is essential to remember, love is the only solution to our life is the one who provides significance to us, who also includes importance to our community.

Let's see below what Erich Fromm's sentences sum up these thoughts best.

1. Love is the active interest in life and the development of what we love

If the book "The art of love" contains an interesting aspect, it is the thesis that most of us don't understand how to love. It may be a somewhat grim concept, but remembering the social context Fromm lived in is also lovely. There was a vast emptiness of values after the end of the Second World War, an existential crisis that forced many thinkers, philosophers, and psychologists to reformulate many ideas.

Therefore, love was and is the engine that should push us to be better. We are forced to work actively in our character and personal growth for this so that we can fulfill our self-love first and then love the other completely. This needs real humility, bravery, faith, and discipline.

2. Love is an activity, not a passive impact; it is a continuation, not a sudden beginning

We noted at the start. Being in love is not supposed to be a passive act, like someone who gets carried away without doing anything else. On the contrary, it is an act in which there is a lot of motion, will, and exchange in its pleasure.

This is another of Erich Fromm's most representative sentences, and we are encouraged to leave aside the cloud in which we are installed to reinforce that connection, to invest effort, to work hand in hand on the same project and to be the daily creators of our own relationship.

3. The concept of child love follows: "I love because they love me."

The concept of child love is: "I love it because they love me." At the start, mature love obeys: "I love them because I love them." Immature love says: I love you because I need them. Mature love states, "For I love you, I need you."

One of the sentences of Erich Fromm which is not restricted to the area of affective interactions alone. It has a lot to do with how individuals relate to culture itself: they do it more out of necessity or feeling of a want than out of altruism than out of genuine love for their colleagues.

For Fromm, this type of love, depending on need, is pathological. It means not attending to us or understanding each other, it means waiting for others to take responsibility for what we can't accomplish, and it's actually in our region of responsibility.

"The first step is to realize that love is an art, just as life is an art ; if we want to learn to love, we have to continue in the same manner that we have to continue if we want to know any other art, such as music, painting, carpentry or medical or engineering arts"

4. If two individuals were strangers

This is one of the most lovely sentences of Erich Fromm. It informs us about intimacy, the miracle that generally starts with appeal and ends with a more in-depth meeting that transcends the skin itself and sexuality. We're talking about the emotional attachment, discovering the other as an individual in all his nuances, his virtues, his faults, his essences.

We're talking about the intimacy in which slip trusts, the touch that bristles the skin's hair, or a relaxed and nostalgic conversation called stars that sneaks through those holes in the sky.

5. Love is fundamentally not a connection with a particular individual

In his job, Fromm wants us to know that individuals see love as an item rather than a faculty. Loving is not a dynamic that is restricted to our partnership, our parents, or our kids.

"Love" is enriching our life, it is an attitude that can give significance to this globe, a purpose that can transform society. However, as Fromm explains to us, in this contemporary culture, in our eagerness to fulfill our own requirements, even love, we have commercialized everything.

6. Paradoxically, two beings become one while remaining two at the same time

This is another of the best-known sentences of Erich Fromm, as well as one of the most inviting reflections. As we understand, to dilute ourselves in the loved one, particularly at the start of the relationship, is a temptation in which we tend to fall very often. It is a method of entropy that finishes its own identity, consuming essences, liberties, and dignities.

We can not forget that the real art of love is to remain us but to be involved in the same project. Being two in the same engagement, being two oriented towards enabling one's own and the couple's development.

7. There is an excellent distinction between falling in love and remaining in love

It's a love of consumption, use, and throw away. Where enthusiasm may occur, but also readily clouded by the other's lack of confidence and ignorance. A love that never takes shape before recycling. 

On the other side, who understands (and intends) to go beyond the original sexual attraction and enthusiasm, will attempt to build real intimacy, will try to be an artisan to make love true love, a mature and courageous love.

To conclude, in Erich Fromm's sentences, we learned that love is not just an act of mastery, where practice and theory are to be dominated. It also formulates the art of love as an active and accountable approach towards life and society itself. It is a transformative force requiring consciousness rather than conformity, claiming creativity rather than passivity.