It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
Once you base your whole life striving on a desperate lie, and try to implement that lie, you instrument your own undoing. — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“one of the great dangers of life is too much possibility, and that the place where we find people who have succumbed… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“to become conscious of what one is doing to earn his feeling of heroism is the main self-analytic problem of life.” — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
Love is the problem of an animal who must find life, create a dialogue with nature in order to experience his own… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
To live is to play at the meaning of life...The upshot of this . . . is that it teaches us once… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“Since the main task of human life is to become heroic and transcend death, every culture must provide its members with an… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“This is one of the reasons for bigotry and censorship of all kinds over personal morality: people fear that the standard morality… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that whatever man does on this planet has to be done… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“If the frustrations are not surrounded by anxiety, fear of life, insecure love and support, then the child progresses easily and naturally… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“What does it mean to be a self-conscious animal? The idea is ludicrous, if it is not monstrous. It means to know that one… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“the characteristics the modern mind prides itself on are precisely those of madness.” — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“When we are young we are often puzzled by the fact that each person we admire seems to have a different version of what… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt. — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“neurosis as a problem of character and have seen that it can be approached in two ways: as a problem of too much narrowness… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
When we understand that man is the only animal who must create meaning, who must open a wedge into neutral nature, we already understand… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
What is the ideal for mental health, then? A lived, compelling illusion that does not lie about life, death, and reality; one honest enough… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“This is one of the reasons for bigotry and censorship of all kinds over personal morality: people fear that the standard morality will be… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“Civilized" society is a hopeful belief and protest that science, money and goods make man count for more than any other animal. In this… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
We might say that psychoanalysis revealed to us the complex penalties of denying the truth of man's condition, what we might call the costs… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“Understanding this, Rank could take a great step beyond Freud. Freud thought that modern man’s moral dependence on another was a result of the… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious and if we do not understand this we understand nothing about man.” — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“If the partner becomes God he can just as easily become the Devil; the reason is not far to seek. For one thing, one… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“every human being is… equally unfree, that is, we… create out of freedom, a prison….” — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“The point is that if the love object is divine perfection, then one’s own self is elevated by joining one’s destiny to it.” — Ernest Becker Copy Share
