“But a map is not enough as a guide for action; we also need a goal that tells us where to go. Animals have no such problems. Their instincts provide them with a map as well as with goals. But lacking instinctive determination and having a brain that permits us to think of many directions in which we can go, we need an object of total devotion, a focal point for all our strivings and the basis for all our effective - not only our proclaimed - values. We need such an object of devotion in order to integrate our energies in one direction, to transcend our isolated existence, with all its doubts and insecurities, and to answer our need for a meaning of life.”
More from Erich Fromm
“There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as ‘moral…”
“...love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence...”
“An illusion shared by everyone becomes a reality.”
“Love isn’t something natural. Rather it requires discipline, concentration, patience,…”