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
Human beings have the power to either uplift themselves and others through love and creation or to bring about negativity through hate and destruction.
This quote by Erich Fromm discusses the nature of human choice and existence. It suggests that at the core of being human is the drive to transcend one's own limitations, which can lead to two fundamental paths: the path of creation, characterized by love and positive contribution, or the path of destruction, marked by hate and negativity. Fromm emphasizes that these choices define our humanity and impact both ourselves and the world around us.
In practice
In a speech about personal empowerment, I might say, 'As Erich Fromm reminds us, we have the ultimate choice to create or to destroy.'
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.
The premise of the Taker story is 'the world belongs to man'. β¦ The premise of the Leaver story is 'man belongs to the world'.
Drunkenness is nothing but voluntary madness.
It is an anxious, sometimes a dangerous thing to be a doll. Dolls cannot choose; they can only be chosen; they cannot 'do'; they can only be done by.
If you and I are to live religious lives, it mustn't be that we talk a lot about religion, but that our manner of life is different. It is my belief that only if you try to be helpful to other people will you in the end find your way to God.
But there is a light that goes deeper than the will, a light that lights up the darkness behind it: that light can change your will, can make it truly yours and not another's - not the Shadow's. Into the created can pour itself the creating will, and so redeem it!
Because of this ever increasing discernment of the true Mason he/she will find more efficient ways to apply brotherly love, relief and truth.
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