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Selfish persons are incapable of loving others, but they are not capable of loving themselves either.
Erich Fromm
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Selfish individuals lack the capacity to truly love others, as well as themselves.

This quote by Erich Fromm highlights the idea that selfishness is a barrier to both self-love and the ability to love others. When individuals are consumed by their own desires and needs, they are unable to form genuine connections with others or even appreciate themselves, indicating that true love requires selflessness and openness to others.

Themes

SelfishnessLoveSelf-LoveRelationshipsConnection

In practice

Example use cases

During a workshop on relationships, this quote can be used to emphasize the importance of giving and receiving love.

More from Erich Fromm

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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In times of change, learners inherit the earth
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In the nineteenth century the problem was that God is dead. In the twentieth century the problem is that man is dead.
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