Fromm writes:
"In the realm of feeling, the productive orientation is expressed in love, which is the experience of union with another person, with all men, and with nature, under the condition of retaining one’s sense of integrity and independence. In the experience of love the paradox happens that two people become one, and remain two at the same time. Love in this sense is never restricted to one person. If I can love only one person, and nobody else, if my love for one person makes me more alienated and distant from my fellow man, I may be attached to this person in any number of ways, yet I do not love."
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"If I can say, “I love you,” I say, “I love in you all of humanity, all that is alive; I love in you also myself.”
Self-love, in this sense, is the opposite of selfishness. "
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"Productive love always implies a syndrome of attitudes; that of care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
If I love, I care — that is, I am actively concerned with the other person’s growth and happiness; I am not a spectator.
I am responsible, that is, I respond to his needs, to those he can express and more so to those he cannot or does not express.
I respect him, that is (according to the original meaning of re-spicere) I look at him as he is, objectively and not distorted by my wishes and fears.
I know him, I have penetrated through his surface to the core of his being and related myself to him from my core, from the center, as against the periphery, of my being."
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