Rating: 
Summary: After nearly 50 years Fromm's words ring true
Review: I recently read Fromm's The Art of Loving for the second time, the first time was for a paper in college. All I can say is Fromm's words are though provoking and even life changing. His discussion of real love (based on care, respect, responsibility and knowledge) vs. falling in love or being in love which, in Fromm's words is only a temporary euphoric state based not on love, but on curing one's loneliness speaks to love as the answer for human existence. From sees love not as something that just happens, but rather as an art that must be crafted.
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Summary: Responsible love
Review: I remember reading this work in my teenage years. It made a great impression on me then. One of Fromm's points is that we cannot really love others unless we love ourselves. This went against the notion I had at the time that ' self- love' meant ' selfishness only, and that one had to choose between loving oneself and loving another. I think Fromm's point here is a deep and true one.
Another important point Fromm made is connecting love with responsibility, care and concern. In other words as a young person there was a tendency to think that love is simply a ' romantic feeling' Fromm broadened the conception of ' love' I had. And this too through indicating that there are different kinds of love, depending upon the kind of relationship it is.
Fromm also, and this is another important point gave the sense that it is ' right to love' and that ' love is not a sin'. He gave a sense that love is an essential part of a meaningful life, and something each and every one of us is capable of.
His connecting love with truly understanding and caring for ' the other' is another major point. So instead of the instinctually driven, fundamentally sinful view of Man given by Fromm's teacher Freud , Fromm presents us with a fundamentally positive view of human nature and its capacities. This is an especially wonderful book for young people. It can give hope and strength to help them make better lives for themselves and those they love and are loved by.
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Summary: LOVE IS THE REASON OF LIFE...
Review: I think that the real progress of humanity is not in technology,
in scientific knowledge, in wealth or anything like that, but is in the always greater awareness that the only reason of life is LOVE. Maybe today many people think to know this, but they really don't know, 'cause love isn't just finding a man or woman to spend life with. And this book will help them understand what's really about it. And, hopefully, it will convince people who think life's purpose is somewhere else.
OK, knowing is not enough, as Fromm teaches, but it's the first step, and I hope we all will do it someday...
Rating:
Summary: This book will change your attitudes.
Review: In a world of fuzzy love epitomised by trashy love songs whichbrainwash young people into thinking such things as 'I can't livewithout you' and 'I love you more than life itself', this book offers an invaluable perspective on just what it is you might be feeling when you 'fall in love' with someone. Indeed, Fromm questions the whole concept of 'falling in love'. One will conclude that there is more 'falling' than there is 'love' in the whole process. He argues that we are better served by 'standing' in love. And how true. While practice makes perfect, and no book can compensate for that, Fromm's enlightenment is sure to raise an eyebrow of awareness among anyone who has ever loved or been loved. While we older, and perhaps wiser, folk may say 'yes, indeed' to Fromm's lucid and thought-provoking work, surely it's the teenage generation which needs this map of the one emotion which is perhaps most prominent in their minds. If you have ever experienced the pain of love, this book will change your attitudes towards the whole emotion, for ultimately you will conclude that where there is love,ie. the real honest variety, there is no pain and there can be no pain. Excellently written, like all Fromm's work, you will want to read it in one sitting.
Rating:
Summary: You need no other book on loving
Review: In an age of quick fix self-help formulas on how to love, _The Art of Loving_ stands out as a masterpiece of understanding and insight on the most important topic in human existence. Seeing love as a choice and not a feeling is an essential, but almost universally missed, step in the maturation of an individual and Fromm's analysis on this topic and other aspects of loving is both succinct and profound. This short book is one of the few works that can change your life permanently for the better - the catch being, do you really want to *work* for it?
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Summary: A Mature understanding of Love
Review: In our society we seem bent on creating for ouselves the ideal life,that the material world has developed into a culture.Along
with this comes our ideal of what Love is and who we will endow with it,the perfect match,having assimilated all that is desireable in our culture.No wonder so many marriages fail.
Fromm exposes all of this,and some point out quite correctly that there is little said of the practice of Love.This is because
Love is a disposition of the heart through a realisation or revelation.It cannot be switched on by any prescribed means.Once it is switched on,it cannot be switched off,because things now appear as they really are and all the allure of power and money fall to pieces.We begin to live not for ourselves but for others.
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Summary: Ningun libro mejor
Review: La primera vez que lei El Arte.. fue hace 15 años... Y puedo decir que me enseño a vivir de otra manera. Con Erich Fromm descubri otro mundo, que parece simple ( En Argentina, mucha gente (pseudo intelectual) piensa que Fromm es una lectura facil y de bolsillo, la descalifican de esa manera. Una desgracia para ellos, porque leer El arte de amar, es encontrar una puerta hacia donde caminar para encontrar el sentido de vivir. Para mi, Fromm, es mi maestro.
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Summary: A wonderful protocol for love
Review: Many books have been written and are being written on love,romance and spirituality. In todays world that is either fighting on the name of religion without any real spiritual quest or qenching it in hedonistic ways, I feel there is a major need to learn about love and cultivate it than never before. Spitituality as I see it is but a question- " we are born without our will and we die against our will. And things in between seem to happen without me having to say anything much. So, what am i doing here?". Well, there is no real answer to this question, but there is a solution, and that is to feel at home here in this world from the day we are sent to this world untill that day we are forced to call it off. And love for ourselves and for this world is what we need to achieve that state of restfulness. All dogmos and ideologies are nothing but theoretical derivations out of the above mentioned axiom, and problems arise as people stick onto the derivations without really understanding the basic problem, that is, " how to love?". All the spiritual texts put great emphasis on love, but, they associate great sins with the failure to achieve love, and so it is looked upon as a virtue of saints and monks that is not a necessity for ordinary people . But as that is the very problem this whole humanity is trying to answer without really understanding it, no one can really feel peaceful and call himself spiritually matured without mastering this art of loving. And to my knowledge, this is the only book that says love is an art that can be mastered by anyone and everyone by cultivating three simple virtues namely patience, perseverence and practice. With all my heart i recommend this book for anyone with real spiritual quest, for anyone who is interested in finding his place in this world. I suggest you read the last chapter in this book titled " The practice of love" before reading the other chapters.
Rating:
Summary: A wondeful interpretation of what Love really is.
Review: Never has a book so much reflected the ways that I feel about friendship, romance and spirituality. And taught me so much about the value of self. I have also never recommended a book more as much as this work.
Rating:
Summary: Maravillosamente inspirador
Review: Recomendable para cualquier persona que tenga preguntas en relación con su sanidad amatoria
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