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I would say that what people really mean by happiness is unlimited consumption. We are a society of consumers. I think if you ask people what their concept of Heaven is, they would say, that it is a big department store with new things every week, all the money to buy them. Actually we are the eternal suckling, the eternal baby who wants the bottle.Happiness should be not an aim in itself but something that accompanies intense relatedness to many things - to man, to nature - a relatedness that does not exclude deep sadness, because one cannot remain sensitive and responsive to the world without often being deeply sad.

-Erich Fromm