Love is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. If love were only a feeling, there would be no basis for the promise to love each other forever. A feeling comes and it may go. How can I judge that it will stay forever, when my act does not involve judgment and decision.

). He observed that embracing our freedom of will was healthy whereas escaping freedom through the use of escape mechanisms was the root of psychological conflicts. Drawing from his knowledge of the Torah Fromm pointed to the story of Jonah who did not wish to save the residents of Nineveh from the consequences of their sin as demonstrative of his belief that the qualities of care and responsibility are generally absent from most human relationships.

Erich SeligmannFromm (March 23 1900 – March 18 1980) was a German social psychologist psychoanalyst sociologist humanistic philosopher and democratic socialist.