Ernest Becker Quotes
...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contrad...
Show MoreRelationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt.
Too much possibility is the attempt by the person to overvalue the powers of the symbolic self. It r...
Show MoreMan is literally split in two: he has an awareness of his own splendid uniqueness in that he sticks ...
Show MoreWhy would a person prefer the accusations of guilt, unworthiness, ineptitude - even dishonor and bet...
Show Morethe best existential analysis of the human condition leads directly into the problems of God and fai...
Show More[Man] literally drives himself into a blind obliviousness with social games, psychological tricks, p...
Show MoreMan cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest p...
Show MoreWe are gods with anuses.
Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.
The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.
In this view, man is an energy-convertingorganism who must exert his manipulative powers, who must d...
Show MorePeople were always ready to yield theirwills, to worship the hero, because they were not given a cha...
Show MoreWhat is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life...
Show MoreThe artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own person...
Show MoreMen use one another to assure their personal victory over death.
Man is an animal who has to live in a lie in order tolive at all.
In this view, man is an energy-converting organism who must exert his manipulative powers, who must ...
Show MoreToday we are living the grotesque spectacle of the poisoningof the earth by the nineteenth-century h...
Show MoreTry repeating “man is an animal" a few times, just to notice how unconvincing it sounds. There seems...
Show MoreAnd so we see the paradox that evolution has handed us. If man is the only animal whose consciousnes...
Show MoreWe called one's lifestyle a vital lie, and now we can understand better why we said it was vital: it...
Show MoreModern man is drinking and drugging himself out of awarness, or he spends his time shopping, which i...
Show MoreObviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals.
