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Man, The More He Gains Freedom In The Sense Of Emerging From The Original Oneness With Man And Nature And The More He Becomes An "individual," Has No Choice But To Unite Himself With The World In The Spontaneity Of Love And Productive Work Or Else To Seek A Kind Of Security By Such Ties With The World As Destroy His Freedom And The Integrity Of His Individual Self.

-Erich Fromm

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Man, The More He

Erich Fromm

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Man, The More He Gains Freedom In The Sense Of Emerging From The Original Oneness With Man And Nature And The More He Becomes An "individual," Has No Choice But To Unite Himself With The World In The Spontaneity Of Love And Productive Work Or Else To Seek A Kind Of Security By Such Ties With The World As Destroy His Freedom And The Integrity Of His Individual Self.

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Exploitation And Manipulation Produce Boredom And Triviality; They Cripple Man, And All Factors That Make Man Into A Psychic Cripple Turn Him Also Into A Sadist Or A Destroyer.

Reason Is Man's Faculty For Grasping The World By Thought, In Contradiction To Intelligence, Which Is Man's Ability To Manipulate The World With The Help Of Thought. Reason Is Man's Instrument For Arriving At The Truth, Intelligence Is Man's Instrument For Manipulating The World More Successfully; The Former Is Essentially Human, The Latter Belongs To The Animal Part Of Man.

I Need You Because I Love You.

There Is Nothing Inhuman, Evil, Or Irrational Which Does Not Give Some Comfort, Provided It Is Shared By A Group.

Happiness Is A Man's Greatest Achievement; It Is The Response Of His Total Personality To A Productive Orientation Toward Himself And The World Outside.

A New Question Has Arisen In Modern Man's Mind, The Question, Namely, Whether Life Is Worth Living...no Sensible Answer Can Be Given To The Question...because The Question Does Not Make Any Sense.

Man Unites Himself With The World In The Process Of Creation.

For [karl] Marx What Counts Is Man. He Is The Root Of Everything;while For Capitalism, The Aim Are Things, Profit, And Man Is Only A Means To Gain Them. As An Authentically Religious Individual, Marx Could Not Be Other Than Against "religion".

Man's Main Task In Life Is To Give Birth To Himself, To Become What He Potentially Is. The Most Important Product Of His Effort Is His Own Personality.

All Genuine Ideals Have One Thing In Common: They Express The Desire For Something Which Is Not Yet Accomplished But Which Is Desirable For The Purpose Of The Growth And Happiness Of The Individual.

Love Is Hot A Higher Power Which Descends Upon Mn Nor A Duty Which Is Imposed Upon Him; It Is His Own Power By Which He Relates Himself To The World And Makes It Truly His.

Man Is Born As A Freak Of Nature, Being Within Nature And Yet Transcending It. He Has To Find Principles Of Action And Decision-making Which Replace The Principles Of Instincts.

If You Want A Big Brother, You Get All That Comes With It.

All Great Art Is By Its Very Essence In Conflict With The Society With Which It Exists. It Expresses The Truth About The Existence Regardless Of Whether This Truth Serves Or Hinders The Survival Purpose Of A Given Society. All Great Art Is Revolutionary Because It Touches Upon The Reality Of Man And Questions The Reality Of The Various Transitory Forms Of Human Society.

A Person Who Has Not Been Completely Alienated, Who Has Remained Sensitive And Able To Feel, Who Has Not Lost The Sense Of Dignity, Who Is Not Yet 'for Sale', Who Can Still Suffer Over The Suffering Of Others, Who Has Not Acquired Fully The Having Mode Of Existence - Briefly, A Person Who Has Remained A Person And Not Become A Thing - Cannot Help Feeling Lonely, Powerless, Isolated In Present-day Society.

Suffering Of Others

I Think We Got Off The Track, As Many Societies Do, Who Follow Successfully One Aim, And Yet Are Not Capable Of Seeing At What Point The Pursuit Of This Aim Prevents Them From Following A More Total Aim. That Is To Say, They Get Into A Blind Alley.

The More The Drive Toward Life Is Thwarted, The Stronger Is The Drive Toward Destruction; The More Life Is Realized, The Less Is The Strength Of Destructiveness. Destructiveness Is The Outcome Of Unlived Life.

In The First World War British Propaganda Had To Invent The Stories Of German Soldiers Bayoneting Belgian Babies, Because There Were Too Few Real Atrocities To Feed The Hatred Against The Enemy.

Man, The More He Gains Freedom In The Sense Of Emerging From The Original Oneness With Man And Nature And The More He Becomes An "individual," Has No Choice But To Unite Himself With The World In The Spontaneity Of Love And Productive Work Or Else To Seek A Kind Of Security By Such Ties With The World As Destroy His Freedom And The Integrity Of His Individual Self.

If You Take A Salesman, Who Sells A Useless Commodity, He Feels Like A Fraud.

It Is A Tragedy That Most Of Us Die Before We Have Begun To Live.

The Revolutionary And Critical Thinker Is In A Certain Way Always Outside Of His Society While Of Course He Is At The Same Time Also In It.

Freedom Does Not Mean License.

The Main Condition For The Achievement Of Love Is The Overcoming Of One's Narcissism. The Narcissistic Orientation Is One In Which One Experiences As Real Only That Which Exists Within Oneself, While The Phenomena In The Outside World Have No Reality In Themselves, But Are Experienced Only From The Viewpoint Of Their Being Useful Or Dangerous To One. The Opposite Pole To Narcissism Is Objectivity; It Is The Faculty To See Other People And Things As They Are, Objectively, And To Be Able To Separate This Objective Picture From A Picture Which Is Formed By One's Desires And Fears.

It Is Essential... That Discipline Should Not Be Practised Like A Rule Imposed On Oneself From The Outside, But That It Becomes An Expression Of One's Own Will; That It Is Felt As Pleasant, And That One Slowly Accustoms Oneself To A Kind Of Behaviour Which One Would Eventually Miss, If One Stopped Practising It.

We May Know Ourselves, And Yet Even With All The Efforts We Make, We Do Not Know Ourselves. We Know Our Fellowman, And Yet We Do Not Know Him, Because We Are Not A Thing, And Our Fellowman Is Not A Thing. The Further We Reach Into The Depths Of Our Being, On Someone Else's Being, The More The Goal Of Knowledge Eludes Us.

In Fifty Years Activity As An Analyst I Have Witnessed Again And Again That A Dreamer After Having Met A Personage Regarded By All As Influential And Good,saw Him Again In A Dream With A Different Face.

Different Faces

It Is Notorious That No War Between Countries Elicits As Much Hate And Cruelty As Civil War, In Which There Is No Lack Of Acquaintance Between The Two Warring Sides.

The Successful Revolutionary Is A Statesman, The Unsuccessful One A Criminal.

[sigmund ] Freud Assumes That Every Dream Represents The Satisfaction Of Adesire And In The Last Analysis, Of A Sexual Desire That Has Its Roots In Infancy.

Man Is The Only Animal For Whom His Own Existence Is A Problem Which He Has To Solve.

I Am Convinced That Boredom Is One Of The Greatest Tortures. If I Were To Imagine Hell, It Would Be The Place Where You Were Continually Bored.

Both Dreams And Myths Are Important Communications From Ourselves To Ourselves. If We Do Not Understand The Language In Which They Are Written, We Miss A Great Deal Of What We Know And Tell Ourselves In Those Hours When We Are Not Busy Manipulating The Outside World.

Mother Is The Home We Come From. She Is Nature, Soil, Ocean.

Conditions For Creativity Are To Be Puzzled; To Concentrate; To Accept Conflict And Tension; To Be Born Everyday; To Feel A Sense Of Self.

If The Russians Claim They Are Socialist, This Is Just, I Would Say, A Lie. They Have No Socialism At All. They Have What I Would Call A State Capitalism.

Paradoxically, The Ability To Be Alone Is The Condition For The Ability To Love.

Ability To Love

Man Is The Only Animal Who Does Not Feel At Home In Nature, Who Can Feel Evicted From Paradise, The Only Animal For Whom His Own Existence Is A Problem That He Has To Solve And From Which He Cannot Escape. He Cannot Go Back To The Prehuman State Of Harmony With Nature, And He Does Not Know Where He Will Arrive If He Goes Forward. Man's Existential Contradiction Results In A State Of Constant Disequilibrium. This Disequilibrium Distinguishes Him From The Animal, Which Lives, As It Were, In Harmony With Nature.

The Human Passions Transform Man From A Mere Thing Into A Hero, Into A Being That In Spite Of Tremendous Handicaps Tries To Make Sense Of Life.

The Pace Of Science Forces The Pace Of Technique. Theoretical Physics Forces Atomic Energy On Us; The Successful Production Of The Fission Bomb Forces Upon Us The Manufacture Of The Hydrogen Bomb. We Do Not Choose Our Problems, We Do Not Choose Our Products; We Are Pushed, We Are Forced -- By What? By A System Which Has No Purpose And Goal Transcending It, And Which Makes Man Its Appendix.

I Would Say Democracy Once Meant An Organizational Society And A State, In Which The Individual Citizen Is - Feels - Responsible, And Acts Responsibly, And Participates In Decision-making.

Modern Man Has Transformed Himself Into A Commodity; He Experiences His Life Energy As An Investment With Which He Should Make The Highest Profit, Considering His Position And The Situation On The Personality Market. He Is Alienated From Himself, From His Fellow Men And From Nature. His Main Aim Is Profitable Exchange Of His Skills, Knowledge, And Of Himself, His "personality Package" With Others Who Are Equally Intent On A Fair And Profitable Exchange. Life Has No Goal Except The One To Move, No Principle Except The One Of Fair Exchange, No Satisfaction Except The One To Consume.p97.

Immature Love Says: 'i Love You Because I Need You.' Mature Love Says 'i Need You Because I Love You.'

Understanding A Person Does Not Mean Condoning; It Only Means That One Does Not Accuse Him As If One Were God Or A Judge Placed Above Him.

We Are Not Only Less Reasonable And Less Decent In Our Dreams... We Are Also More Inteligent, Wiser And Capable Of Better Judgment When We Are Asleep Than When We Are Awake.

Love Is The Only Sane And Satisfactory Answer To The Problem Of Human Existence.

Productive Work, Love And Thought Are Possible Only If A Person Can Be, When Necessary, Quiet And Alone. To Be Able To Listen To Oneself Is The Necessary Condition For Relating Oneself To Others.

Productive Work

In His Condemnation [karl] Marx Referred To Institutionalized Religion,that Has Precisely The Function Of Anesthetizing Men Till They Do Not Notice The In- Justice Of Which They Are The Perpetrators And The Victims.

A Dream Is A Microscope Through Which We Look At The Hidden Occurrences In Our Soul.

Love, Experienced Thus, Is A Constant Challenge; It Is Not A Resting Place, But A Moving, Growing, Working Together; Even Whether There Is Harmony Or Conflict; Joy Or Sadness, Is Secondary To The Fundamental Fact That Two People Experience Themselves From The Essence Of Their Existence, That They Are Only One With Each Other By Being One With Themselves, Rather Than By Fleeing From Themselves.

What You Might Call The "symbol Pushers" - That Is To Say, All Of The People Who Deal With Figures, With Paper, With Men, Who Manipulate - To Use A Better Or Nicer Word - Manipulate Men And Signs And Words. All Those Today Have Not Only To Sell Their Service, But In The Bargain, They Have To Sell Their Personality, More Or Less. There Are Exceptions.

If I Perceive In Another Person Mainly The Surface, I Perceive Mainly The Differences,that Which Separates Us. If I Penetrate To The Core, I Perceive Our Identity, The Fact Of Our Brotherhood. This Relatedness From Center To Center - Instead Of That From Periphery To Periphery - Is 'central Relatedness'.

Psychoanalysis , Which Interprets The Human Being As A Socialized Being, And The Psychic Apparatus As Essentially Developed And Determined Through The Relationship Of The Individual To Society, Must Consider It A Duty To Participate In The Investigation Of Sociological Problems To The Extent The Human Being Or His/her Psyche Plays Any Part At All.

To Have Faith Requires Courage, The Ability To Take A Risk, The Readiness Even To Accept Pain And Disappointment. Whoever Insists On Safety And Security As Primary Conditions Of Life Cannot Have Faith; Whoever Shuts Himself Off In A System Of Defense, Where Distance And Possession Are His Means Of Security, Makes Himself A Prisoner. To Be Loved, And To Love, Need Courage, The Courage To Judge Certain Values As Of Ultimate Concern – And To Take The Jump And To Stake Everything On These Values.

If I Am What I Have And If I Lose What I Have Who Then Am I?

Most People See The Problem Of Love Primarily As That Of Being Loved, Rather Than That Of Loving, Of One's Capacity To Love. Hence The Problem To Them Is How To Be Loved, How To Be Lovable.

Capacity To Love

It Is True That One Has To Think First And Then To Act - But It's Also True That If One Has No Possibility Of Acting, One's Thinking Kind Of Becomes Empty And Stupid.

Man Can Be Conditioned To Behave In Almost Every Desired Way; But Only "almost.

I Want To Mention That Marx Shares Something, If You Don't Mind The Comparison, With The Old Testament: Many People Talk About Him, But Nobody Has Read Him.

The Only Concern Which I Have Today Is That We Have A Policy, A Foreign Policy, Which Enables Us To Avoid A Catastrophe; Which, If One Understands It Properly, Is Indescribable.

Both Dreams And Myths Are Important Communications From Ourselves To Ourselves.

People Do Not See That The Main Question Is Not : "am I Loved?" Which Is To A Large Extent The Question : "am I Approved Of? Am I Protected? Am I Admired?" The Main Question Is: "can I Love?

Hate Is A Product Of The Unfulfilled Life.

Love Is An Act Of Faith.

The Fact That Millions Of People Share The Same Vices Does Not Make These Vices Virtues, The Fact That They Share So Many Errors Does Not Make The Errors To Be Truths, And The Fact That Millions Of People Share The Same Form Of Mental Pathology Does Not Make These People Sane.

Care And Responsibility Are Constituent Elements Of Love, But Without Respect For And Knowledge Of The Beloved Person, Love Deteriorates Into Domination And Possessiveness.

Not He Who Has Much Is Rich, But He Who Gives Much.

There Is Only One Meaning Of Life: The Act Of Living Itself.

Meaning Of Life

We Have, In The Same Way, Relegated Our Own Responsibility In What Happens To Our Country To The Specialists, Who Are Supposed To Take Care Of It, And The Individual Citizen Does Not Feel That He Can Judge, And Even That He Should Judge, And Take Any Responsibility. I Think There Are Quite A Number Of Recent Developments Which Show That.

In The Dominant Western Religious System, The Love Of God Is Essentially The Same As The Belief In God, In God’s Existence, God’s Justice, God’s Love. The Love Of God Is Essentially A Thought Experience. In The Eastern Religions And In Mysticism, The Love Of God Is An Intense Feeling Experience Of Oneness, Inseparably Linked With The Expression Of This Love In Every Act Of Living.

Is Love An Art? Then It Requires Knowledge And Effort.

I Would Say, Compared With The 19th Century, Compared With Most Previous History, This Is As Good Or Better A Society Than Any Which Man Has Ever Made. But That Doesn't Mean It Is Such A Good One.

Jewish Legend Says That The World Rests On 36 Just Men: Only Thirty Six, But Their Moral Strength Is Immense.

Man Can Only Know The Nagation, Never The Position Of Ultimate Reality.

People Seek A New Orientation, A New Philosophy, One Which Is Centered On The Priorities Of Life-physically And Spiritually-and Not On The Priorities Of Death.

The Mother-child Relationship Is Paradoxical And, In A Sense, Tragic. It Requires The Most Intense Love On The Mother's Side, Yet This Very Love Must Help The Child Grow Away From The Mother, And To Become Fully Independent.

The Danger Of The Past Was That Men Became Slaves. The Danger Of The Future Is That Man May Become Robots.

Intellectuals Are Hindered On The Way To Being, By Their Narcissism.

Neurosis Can Be Understood Best As The Battle Between Tendencies Within An Individual; Deep Character Analysis Leads, If Successful, To The Progressive Solution.

What Are The Conditions Of The Creative Attitude, Of Seeing And Responding, Of Being Aware And Being Sensitive To What One Is Aware Of? First Of All It Requires The Capacity To Be Puzzled. Children Still Have The Capacity To Be Puzzled.

Today It Is Not Alive. What, Then, Is This Experience Of Humanism? With The Above Survey I Have Tried To Show You That The Experience Of Humanism Is That — As Terence Expressed It — “nothing Human Is Alien To Me”; That Nothing Which Exists In Any Human Being Does Not Exist In Myself. I Am The Criminal And I Am The Saint. I Am The Child And I Am The Adult. I Am The Man Who Lived A Hundred Thousand Years Ago And I Am The Man Who, Provided We Don't Destroy The Human Race, Will Live Hundred Thousand Years From Now.

Even If Man's Hunger And Thirst And His Sexual Strivings Are Completely Satisfied, 'he' Is Not Satisfied. In Contrast To The Animal His Most Compelling Problems Are Not Solved Then, They Only Begin. He Strives For Power Or For Love, Or For Destruction, He Risks His Life For Religious, For Political, For Humanistic Ideals, And These Strivings Are What Constitutes And Characterizes The Peculiarity Of Human Life.

You Have To Stop In Order To Change Direction.

The Affirmation Of One's Own Life, Happiness, Growth And Freedom, Is Rooted In One's Capacity To Love.

Capacity To Love

What Is It That Distinguishes Man From Animals? It Is Not His Upright Posture.

Whether...a Change From The Supremacy Of Natural Science To A New Social Science Will Take Place...depends On One Factor: How Many Brilliant, Learned, Disciplined, And Caring Men And Women Are Attracted By The New Challenge.

Women Are Equal Because They Are Not Different Any More.

We Are Confronted With The Possibility Of A War Of Such Destruction That The Whole Existence Of Our Nation And Of The Whole World Is At Stake. And Yet, People Know It - People Read It In The Newspapers, People Read That At The First Attack, A Hundred Million Americans Might Be Killed. And Yet, They Talk About It As If They Were Talking About Something Being Wrong With The Carburetor Of Their Car, Perhaps.

Authority Is Not A Quality One Person 'has,' In The Sense That He Has Property Or Physical Qualities. Authority Refers To An Interpersonal Relation In Which One Person Looks Upon Another As Somebody Superior To Him.

Freedom Is Not A Constant Attribute Which We Either "have" Or "have Not." In Fact, There Is No Such Thing As "freedom" Except As A Word And An Abstract Concept. There Is Only One Reality: The Act Of Freeing Ourselves In The Process Of Making Choices. In This Process The Degree Of Our Capacity To Make Choices Varies With Each Act, With Our Practice Of Life.

The Scars Left From The Child's Defeat In The Fight Against Irrational Authority Are To Be Found At The Bottom Of Every Neurosis.

I Think The Russians Might Do Away With The Terror In Twenty Or Thirty Or Years, When They Are Richer, And When They Don't Need These Repressive Methods So Much.

If Our Supreme Value Is The Development Of The Western Tradition - Of A Man For Whom The Highest Thing In Life Is Man, For Whom Love For Man, Respect For Man, And The Dignity Of Man, Are Supreme Values - Then We Cannot Ask The Question That Says, "if It Is Better For Our Survival, Might We Drop These Values?"

The Right To Express Our Thoughts Means Something Only If We Are Able To Have Thoughts Of Our Own

On The Whole, Our Modern Ritual Is Impoverished And Does Not Fulfill Man's Need For Collective Art And Ritual.

Love Is An Act Of Faith, And Whoever Is Of Little Faith Is Also Of Little Love.

The Ownership Of Industry By The State - That Is Not Socialism.

Erotic Love Begins With Separateness, And Ends In Oneness. Motherly Love Begins With Oneness, And Leads To Separateness.

The Danger Of The Past Was That Men Became Slaves. The Danger Of The Future Is That Men May Become Robots. True Enough, Robots Do Not Rebel. But Given Man's Nature, Robots Cannot Live And Remain Sane, They Become ''golems',' They Will Destroy Their World And Themselves Because They Cannot Stand Any Longer The Boredom Of A Meaningless Life.

Man Does Not Only Sell Commodities, He Sells Himself And Feels Himself To Be A Commodity.

Modern Man Is Assailed On Every Side And Almost Without Interruption By Noise - Of The Radio, Of Television, Of Headlines, Of Advertising And Of The Cinema - Of Which The Greatest Part, Far From Enlightening The Mind, Blunts And Stultifies It.

What Is Common To Our Societies Is The Development Into A Managed Mass Society, With Big Bureaucracy, Managing People. The Russians Do It By Force. We Do It By Persuasion.

Close Your Eyes, Let Your Spirit Start To Soar, And You'll Live As You've Never Lived Before.

The History Of Man So Far Is Nothing To Brag About, From The Standpoint Of Our Ideas - And What I Mean Is, That In Comparison With Most Other Societies, Our Present-day American Society Has Achieved Things Which Are Remarkable: Material Wealth, Greater Than For Any Other Nation; A Relative Freedom From Oppression; A Relative Mobility; A Spreading Of Art, Of Music, Of Thought, Which Is Also Rather Unique.

I Believe That The Experience Of Love Is The Most Human And Humanizing Act That It Is Given To Man To Enjoy And That It, Like Reason, Makes No Sense If Conceived In A Partial Way.

To Love Somebody Is Not Just A Strong Feeling - It Is A Decision, It Is A Judgment, It Is A Promise.

Love Isn't Something Natural. Rather It Requires Discipline, Concentration, Patience, Faith, And The Overcoming Of Narcissism. It Isn't A Feeling, It Is A Practice.

In The 19th Century Inhumanity Meant Cruelty; In The 20th Century It Means Schizoid Self-alienation.

Modern Man Thinks He Loses Something - Time - When He Does Not Do Things Quickly. Yet He Does Not Know What To Do With The Time He Gains, Except Kill It.

Fairness Means Not To Use Fraud And Trickery In The Exchange Of Commodities And Services And The Exchange Of Feelings.

There Is Undoubtedly A Difference Between People Who Manipulate Other People And People Who Create Things.

In Erotic Love, Two People Who Were Separate Become One. In Motherly Love, Two People Who Were One Become Separate. The Mother Must Not Only Tolerate, She Must Wish And Support The Child's Separation.

[carl Gustav] Jung Was Not Right When He Said That The Unconscious Message Is Always Written Clearly And So There Is No Need To Seek To Discover The Distortions, Because One Must Recognize That Many Dreams Are More Or Less Distortions.

There Can Be No Real Freedom Without The Freedom To Fail.

The Only Truly Affluent Are Those Who Do Not Want More Than They Have.

Our Main Way Of Relating Ourselves To Others Is Like Things Relate Themselves To Things On The Market. We Want To Exchange Our Own Personality - Or As One Says Sometimes, Our "personality Package" - For Something.

Destructiveness Is The Outcome Of An Unlived Life.

Destructiveness

Modern Man, If He Dared To Be Articulate About His Concept Of Heaven, Would Describe A Vision Which Would Look Like The Biggest Department Store In The World, Showing New Things And Gadgets, And Himself Having Plenty Of Money With Which To Buy Them.

Well-being Is Possible To The Degree To Which One Has Overcome One's Narcissism; To The Degree To Which One Is Open, Responsive, Sensitive, Awake, Empty.... Well-being Means, Finally, To Drop One's Ego, To Give Up Greed, To Cease Chasing After Preservation And The Aggrandizement Of The Ego, To Be And To Experience One's Self In The Act Of Being, Not In Having, Preserving, Coveting, Using.

Man's Biological Weakness Is The Condition Of Human Culture.

Today, We Talk A Lot About Equality, But I Think What Most People Mean By It Is Sameness - That Everybody Is The Same - And They Are Afraid If They Are Not The Same, They Are Not Equal.

Love Is A Power Which Produces Love.

I Am A Socialist. However, I Have To Add That What I Understand By Socialism Is Exactly The Opposite Of What Many People, Or Most People, Today Mean By Socialism.

I Would Say Our Social Relationships Are Relatively Shallow. We Are Actually Afraid To Be Intimate, With People - Many People Even With Their Wives And Husbands.

As We Ascend The Social Ladder, Viciousness Wears A Thicker Mask.

Mother's Love Is Bliss, Is Peace, It Need Not Be Acquired, It Need Not Be Deserved. If It Is There, It Is Like A Blessing; If It Is Not There It Is As If All The Beauty Had Gone Out Of Life.

When An Individual Is Awake, Almost All He Does And Says Is Inspired By The Model Of Behavior That The Society Imposes,even Without His Being Aware Of It.

In The Act Of Giving Lies The Expression Of My Aliveness.

Human History Begins With Man's Act Of Disobedience Which Is At The Same Time The Beginning Of His Freedom And The Development Of His Reason.

The Average American Never Loses His Sleep About Affairs Which Relate To His Society And To Our Whole Country.

If We Love Our Fellow Humans, We Cannot Limit Our Insight And Our Love Only To Others As Individuals...we Have To Be Political People, I Would Even Say Passionately Involved Political People, Each Of Us In The Way That Best Suits Our Own Temperaments, Our Working Lives, And Our Own Capabilities.

That Is Not Quite Enough To Make One Happy, If One Spends Eight Hours A Day In Something Which In Itself Has No Meaning And Interest, Except That One Gains Money From It.

If Other People Do Not Understand Our Behavior-so What? Their Request That We Must Only Do What They Understand Is An Attempt To Dictate To Us. If This Is Being 'asocial' Or 'irrational' In Their Eyes, So Be It. Mostly They Resent Our Freedom And Our Courage To Be Ourselves. We Owe Nobody An Explanation Or An Accounting, As Long As Our Acts Do Not Hurt Or Infringe On Them.

The Aim Of Life Is To Be Fully Born, Though Its Tragedy Is That Most Of Us Die Before We Are Thus Born.

I Would Consider A Socialism A Mixture Of The Minimum Of Centralization Necessary For A Modern Industrial State, And A Maximum Of Decentralization.

Today The Function Of Psychiatry, Psychology And Psychoanalysis Threatens To Become The Tool In The Manipulation Of Man.

Love Is Not Easy. All Great Religions Postulate Love As One Of The Greatest Accomplishments. If It Were That Easy, Or As Easy As Most People Think, Certainly, The Great Religious Leaders Would Have Been Rather Naive.

I Think American Man Unconsciously Hates His Work Very Often, Because He Feels Trapped By It... Imprisoned By It... Because He Feels That He Is Spending Most Of His Energy For Something Which Has No Meaning In Itself.

We Are Concerned With Things. We Are Concerned With Success. We Are Concerned With Money. We Are Concerned With Instrumentalities.

I Think, To Be Specific, We Got Off The Track When We Concentrated More And More On Production Of Things. Thereby, We Created A Split Between Intellect And Emotion, Because, In Order To Produce A Modern Technique, You Have To Use Intellect, And We Have Created Men Who Are Very Brilliant, Who Are Very Clever, But Our Emotional Life Has Become Impoverished.

Basically, There Can Only Be Two Answers. One Is To Overcome Separateness And Find Unity By Regression To The State Of Unity Which Existed Before Awareness Ever Arose, That Is, Before Man Was Born. The Other Answer Is To Be Fully Born, To Develop One's Awareness, One's Reason, One's Capacity To Love To Such A Point That One Transcends One's Own Egocentric Involvement, And Arrives At A New Harmony, At A New Oneness With The World.

Capacity To Love

Our Conscious Motivations, Ideas, And Beliefs Are A Blend Of False Information, Biases, Irrational Passions, Rationalizations, Prejudices, In Which Morsels Of Truth Swim Around And Give The Reassurance Albeit False, That The Whole Mixture Is Real And True. The Thinking Processes Attempt To Organize This Whole Cesspool Of Illusions According To The Laws Of Plausibility. This Level Of Consciousness Is Supposed To Reflect Reality; It Is The Map We Use For Organizing Our Life.

If The Handbag Could Think, It Would Have A Terrific Inferiority Feeling, Because, Not Having Been Bought, It Would Feel Useless.

In The Nineteenth Century The Problem Was That God Is Dead. In The Twentieth Century The Problem Is That Man Is Dead.

Is Love An Art? Then It Requires Knowledge And Effort. Love Is Not A Spontaneous Feeling, A Thing That You Fall Into, But Is Something That Requires Thought, Knowledge, Care, Giving, And Respect. And It Is Something That Is Rare And Difficult To Find In Capitalism, Which Commodifies Human Activity.

Technical Utopias-flying, For Example-have Been Achieved By The New Science Of Nature.the Human Utopia...a United New Humankind Living In Solidarity And Peace, Free From Economic Determination And From War And Class Struggle-can Be Achieved, Provided We Spend The Same Energy, Intelligence, And Enthusiasm On The Realization Of The Human Utopia As We Have Spent On The Realization Of Our Technical Utopias.

We Are Terribly Imaginative, As Far As Technique In Science Is Concerned. As Far As Changes In Social Arrangements Are Concerned, We Lack Utterly In Imagination.

Man Absolutely Cannot Live By Himself.

The Only Way Of Full Knowledge Lies In The Act Of Love; This Act Transcends Thought, It Transcends Words. It Is The Daring Plunge Into The Experience Of Union. To Love Somebody Is Not Just A Strong Feeling-it Is A Decision, It Is A Judgment, It Is A Promise.

Infantile Love Follows The Principle: "i Love Because I Am Loved." Mature Love Follows The Principle: "i Am Loved Because I Love." Immature Love Says: "i Love You Because I Need You." Mature Love Says: "i Need You Because I Love You.

The Average American Has Separated His Private Life From His Existence As A Member Of His Society, And Leaves That To The Specialists In The Government To Take Care Of.

The Third Error Leading To The Assumption That There Is Nothing To Be Learned About Love Lies In The Confusion Between The Initial Experience Of ‘falling’ In Love, And The Permanent State Of Being In Love, Or As We Might Better Say, Of ‘standing’ In Love.

Falling In Love

If You Do Not Smile, You Are Judged Lacking In A 'pleasing Personality' - And You Need To Have A Pleasing Personality If You Want To Sell Your Services, Whether As A Waitress, A Salesman, Or A Physician.

There Is Nothing Of Which We Are More Ashamed Than Of Not Being Ourselves. And There Is Nothing Which Brings Us Greater Joy And Happiness Than To Think, Feel, And Say What Is Ours.

People Have Committed Suicide Because Of Their Failure To Realize The Passions For Love , Power , Fame , Revenge . Cases Of Suicide Because Of A Lack Of Sexual Satisfaction Are Virtually Nonexistent.

Only When Man Succeeds In Developing His Reason And Love Further Than He Has Done So Far, Only When He Can Build A World Based On Human Solidarity And Justice, Only When He Can Feel Rooted In The Experience Of Universal Brotherliness, Will He Have Tr

The Destruction Of The World Is The Last, Almost Desperate Attempt To Save Myself From Being Crushed By It

The Two Most Far-reaching Critical Theories At The Beginning Of The Latest Phase Of Industrial Society Were Those Of Marx And Freud. Marx Showed The Moving Powers And The Conflicts In The Social-historical Process. Freud Aimed At The Critical Uncovering Of The Inner Conflicts. Both Worked For The Liberation Of Man, Even Though Marx's Concept Was More Comprehensive And Less Time-bound Than Freud's.

The Most Important Influence On A Child Is The Character Of Its Parents, Rather Than This Or That Single Event.

The Essential Difference Between The Unhappy, Neurotic Type Person And Him Of Great Joy Is The Difference Between Get And Give.

Giving Is The Highest Expression Of Potency. In The Very Act Of Giving, I Experience My Strength, My Wealth, My Power. This Experience Of Heightened Vitality And Potency Fills Me With Joy. I Experience Myself As Overflowing, Spending, Alive, Hence As Joyous.

Education Is Helping The Child Realise His Potentialities.

Power On The One Side, Fear On The Other, Are Always The Buttresses On Which Irrational Authority Is Built.

The Paradoxical And Tragic Situation Of Man Is That His Conscience Is Weakest When He Needs It Most.

We Live In A World Of Things, And Our Only Connection With Them Is That We Know How To Manipulate Or To Consume Them.

Once They Are Through The Process Of Education, Most People Lose The Capacity Of Wondering, Of Being Surprised. They Feel They Ought To Know Everything, And Hence That It Is A Sign Of Ignorance To Be Surprised Or Puzzled By Anything.

The Pleasure In Complete Domination Over Another Person (or Other Animate Creature) Is The Very Essence Of The Sadistic Drive. Another Way Of Formulating The Same Thought Is To Say That The Aim Of Sadism Is To Transform Man Into A Thing, Something Animate Into Something Inanimate, Since By Complete And Absolute Control The Living Loses One Essential Quality Of Life - Freedom.

As Long As Anyone Believes That His Ideal And Purpose Is Outside Him, That It Is Above The Clouds, In The Past Or In The Future, He Will Go Outside Himself And Seek Fulfillment Where It Cannot Be Found. He Will Look For Solutions And Answers At Every Point Except Where They Can Be Found- In Himself.

The Most Beautiful As Well As The Most Ugly Inclinations Of Man Are Not Part Of A Fixed Biologically Given Human Nature, But Result From The Social Process Which Creates Man.

There Is Perhaps No Phenomenon Which Contains So Much Destructive Feeling As Moral Indignation, Which Permits Envy Or To Be Acted Out Under The Guise Of Virtue.

Sleep Is Often The Only Occasion In Which Man Cannot Silence His Conscience; We Forget What We Knew In Our Dream.

Love Is Active Penetration Of The Other Person, In Which My Desire To Know Is Stilled By Union. In The Act Of Fusion I Know You, I Know Myself, I Know Everybody - And I "know" Nothing.

Our Society Is Run By A Managerial Bureaucracy, By Professional Politicians; People Are Motivated By Mass Suggestion, Their Aim Is Producing More And Consuming More, As Purposes In Themselves.

Greedhas No Satiation Point, Since Its Consummation Does Not Fill The Inner Emptiness, Boredom, Loneliness, And Depression It Is Meant To Overcome.

I Only Wish To Be The Fountain Of Love From Which You Drink, Every Drop Promising Eternal Passion.

The Need For The Creation Of Collective Art And Ritual On A Nonclerical Basis Is At Least As Important As Literacy And Higher Education.

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.

This Marxian Sentence, Repeated To The Point Of Boredom, Is Misinterpreted. In Reality [karl] Marx Was A "religious" Man.

Selfish Persons Are Incapable Of Loving Others, But They Are Not Capable Of Loving Themselves Either.

Let Your Mind Start A Journey Through A Strange New World. Leave All Thoughts Of The World You Knew Before. Let Your Soul Take You Where You Long To Be. Close Your Eyes, Let Your Spirit Start To Soar, And You’ll Live As You’ve Never Lived Before.

I Love In You Everybody, I Love Through You The World, I Love In You Also Myself.

Modern Capitalism Needs Men Who Cooperate Smoothly And In Large Numbers; Who Want To Consume More And More; And Whose Tastes Are Standardized And Can Be Easily Influenced And Anticipated. It Needs Men Who Feel Free And Independent, Not Subject To Any Authority Or Principle Or Conscience-- Yet Willing To Be Commanded, To Do What Is Expected Of Them, To Fit Into The Social Machine Without Friction; Who Can Be Guided Without Force, Led Without Leaders, Prompted Without Aim-- Except The One To Make Good, To Be On The Move, To Function, To Go Ahead.

The Confusion Between Temperament And Character Has Had Serious Consequences For Ethical Theory. Preferences With Regard To Differences In Temperament Are Mere Matters Of Subjective Taste. But Differences In Character Are Ethically Of The Most Fundamental Importance.

But Not Only Medicine, Engineering, And Painting Are Arts; Living Itself Is An Art In Fact, The Most Important And At The Same Time The Most Difficult And Complex Art To Be Practiced By Man.

Knowing Means To Penetrate Through The Surface, In Order To Arrive At The Roots, And Hence The Causes; Knowing Means To "see" Reality In Its Nakedness. Knowing Does Not Mean To Be In The Possession Of The Truth; It Means To Penetrate The Surface And To Strive Critically And Actively In Order To Approach Truth Ever More Closely.

People Think That To Love Is Simple, But That To Find The Right Object To Love - Or To Be Loved By - Is Difficult.

One Of The Worst Forms Of Mental Suffering Is Boredom, Not Knowing What To Do With Oneself And One's Life. Even If Man Had No Monetary, Or Any Other Reward, He Would Be Eager To Spend His Energy In Some Meaningful Way Because He Could Not Stand The Boredom Which Inactivity Produces.

Human History Began As An Act Of Disobedience, And It Is Not Unlikely That It Will Be Terminated By An Act Of Obedience. At This Point In History The Capacity To Doubt, To Criticize And To Disobey May Be All That Stands Between A Future For Mankind And The End Of Civilization.

Love Is An Active Power In Man; A Power Which Breaks Through The Walls Which Separate Man From His Fellow Men, Which Unite Him With Others; Love Makes Him Overcome The Sense Of Isolation And Separateness, Yet It Permits Him To Be Himself, To Retain His Integrity.

An Illusion Shared By Everyone Becomes A Reality.

If One Is Not Productive In Other Spheres, One Is Not Productive In The Love Either.

The Most Important Factor For The Development Of The Individual Is The Structure And The Values Of The Society Into Which He Was Born.

Creativity Is The Ability To See And To Respond.

The Sadistic Person Is As Dependent On The Submissive Person As The Latter Is On The Former; Neither Can Live Without The Other. The Difference Is Only That The Sadistic Person Commands, Exploits, Hurts, Humiliates, And That The Masochistic Person Is Commanded, Exploited, Hurt, Humiliated. This Is A Considerable Difference In A Realistic Sense; In A Deeper Emotional Sense, The Difference Is Not So Great As That Which They Both Have In Common: Fusion Without Integrity .

The Deepest Need Of The Human Being Is To Overcome Our Separateness, To Leave The Prison Of Our Loneliness.

Mother's Love Is Peace. It Need Not Be Acquired, It Need Not Be Deserved.

If A Person Loves Only One Other Person And Is Indifferent To All Others, His Love Is Not Love But A Symbiotic Attachment, Or An Enlarged Egotism.

Boredom Is Nothing But The Experience Of A Paralysis Of Our Productive Powers.

I See Socialism In The Direction, Of Management, Of Enterprise, By All Who Work In The Enterprise.

Thus, The Ultimate Choice For A Man, Inasmuch As He Is Driven To Transcend Himself, Is To Create Or To Destroy, To Love Or To Hate.

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Kjell Magne Bondevik

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