That man can destroy life is just as miraculous a feat as that he can create it, for life is the miracle, the inexplicable. In the act of destruction, man sets himself above life; he transcends himself as a creature. 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.
Interpretation
The ability of humans to create or destroy life reflects their profound capacity for choice and transcendence.
This quote by Erich Fromm emphasizes the duality of human potential, highlighting that both creation and destruction are extraordinary achievements. It suggests that in our choices, we can either elevate ourselves through love and creativity or diminish ourselves through hatred and destruction, ultimately underscoring the responsibility that comes with our capacity to impact life profoundly.
In practice
In a speech about the impact of technology on society, one might use this quote to emphasize the choices we make.
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.
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.
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.
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 β and to take the jump and to stake everything on these values.
In times of change, learners inherit the earth
In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
I think it is better for all people to live on, to look forward to the next stage (after death), as if he had to spend centuries, then he lives properly... looking forward to the great adventure ahead, then he lives!
I'm open to everything. When you start to criticize the times you live in, your time is over.
Limited in his nature, infinite in his desires, man is a fallen god who remembers the heavens.
History is an account, mostly false, of events, mostly unimportant, which are brought about by rulers, mostly knaves, and soldiers, mostly fools.
Searching for the self when I was entirely alone was hazardous. What if I found not so much a great emptiness as a space full of unpleasant contents, a compound of long-hidden truths, closeted, buried, forgotten. When I went looking, I was playing a desperate game of hide-and-seek, fearful of what I might find, most afraid that I would find nothing.
And now have I not told you that what you mistake for madness is but overacuteness of the senses?
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