There is hardly any activity, any enterprise, which is started out with such tremendous hopes and expectations, and yet which fails so regularly, as love.

Erich Fromm (1900–1980), a German-born psychoanalyst and social philosopher associated with the Frankfurt School, developed a humanistic psychology that treated love not as a mere feeling but as a skill requiring knowledge, discipline, and practice. This line is widely attributed to his mid‑century writings on modern alienation and the “art” of loving, where he argues that Western societies invest romance with enormous expectations while neglecting the cultivation of mature, active love. The remark functions as a diagnostic observation: people approach love with optimism and intensity, yet—without learning how to love—repeat patterns of disappointment, instability, and failure.

Fromm frames love as an “enterprise”: something undertaken, not simply fallen into. The contrast between “tremendous hopes and expectations” and love’s frequent “failure” critiques the modern tendency to treat love as a spontaneous emotion that should automatically succeed if the “right” partner is found. For Fromm, this mindset mislocates the problem: failure often stems from inadequate capacity to love—lack of patience, responsibility, respect, and understanding—rather than bad luck. The quote’s significance lies in its reversal of romantic common sense: love is not guaranteed by intensity of feeling; it is sustained by practiced virtues and a mature orientation toward others.