" In the same way, the miser tends to save words, feelings, and thoughts. He does not want to spend energy in feeling or thinking; he needs this energy for the necessary and unavoidable tasks of life. He remains cold and indifferent to the joys and sorrows of others, even his own. As a substitute for a live experience he substitutes the memory of past experiences. These memories are a precious possession, and often he goes over them in thought as he would count his money, his cattle, or his industrial stocks. In fact, the memory of past feelings or experiences is the only form in which he is in touch with his own experiences. He is feeling little, but he is sentimental; sentimental being used here in the sense of “feelingless feelings,” the thought of or the day-dreams of feelings, rather than felt feelings. It is a well-known fact that many possessive, cold, and even cruel people—and the three belong together—who are not moved by human suffering that is real, can shed tears when a movie presents one of those constellations that they remember from their own childhood or that they think of in daydreams. "

― Erich Fromm , The Art of Being