The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given nature, but result from the social process which creates man.
The ability to be alone is the ability to love. It may look paradoxical to you, but it’s not. It is an existential truth: only those who can be alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core of another human being—without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to a thing, and without becoming addicted to the other.
Man’s main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is. The most important product of his effort is his own personality.
The main task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control.
The most beautiful as well as the most ugly inclinations of man are not part of a fixed biologically given nature, but result from the social process which creates man.
The real opposition is that between the ego-bound man, whose existence is structured by the principle of having, and the free man, whose existence is structured by the principle of being.
The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.
