“I believe that every man and woman represents humanity. We are different as to intelligence, health, talents. Yet we are all one. We are all saints and sinners, adults and children, and no one is anyone’s superior or judge. We have all been awakened with the Buddha, crucified with Christ, and we have all killed and robbed with Genghis Khan, Stalin, and Hitler. I believe that man can visualize the experience of the whole universal man only by realizing his individuality and never by trying to reduce himself to an abstract, common denominator. Man’s task in life is the paradoxical one of realizing his individuality and at the same time transcending it to arrive at the experience of universality. Only the fully developed self can drop the ego.”

Erich Fromm, via Sunbeams (Page 51)