I would say our social relationships are relatively shallow. We are actually afraid to be intimate, with people - many people even with their wives and husbands.

To love somebody is not just a strong feeling - it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise.

Can one have love? If we could, love would need to be a thing, a substance that one can have, own, possess. The truth is, there is no such thing as love. Love is an abstraction, perhaps a goddess or an alien being, although nobody has ever seen this goddess. In reality, there exists only the act of loving. To love is a productive activity. It implies caring for, knowing, responding, affirming, enjoying: the person, the tree, the painting, the idea. It means bringing to life, increasing his/her/its aliveness. It is a process, self-renewing and self increasing.

In fact, there are very important writings of Marx which are not even translated into English.

The experience of separateness arouses anxiety; it is, indeed, the source of all anxiety.

Love means to commit oneself without guarantee, to give oneself completely in the hope that our love will produce love in the loved person. Love is an act of faith, and whoever is of little faith is also of little love.

Thus, the ultimate choice for a man, inasmuch as he is driven to transcend himself, is to create or to destroy, to love or to hate.