“The great boon of repression is that it makes it possible to live decisively in an overwhelmingly miraculous and incomprehensible world, a world so full of beauty, majesty, and terror that if animals perceived it all they would be paralyzed… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“Man had to invent and create out of himself the limitations of perception and the equanimity to live on this planet. And so to the core of psychodynamics, the formation of the human character, is a study in human self-limitation… — 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 is food for worms. This is the terror: to have emerged from nothing, to have a name, consciousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet… — Ernest Becker Copy Share
“the characteristics the modern mind prides itself on are precisely those of madness.” — 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 of what… — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt. — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
“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 Image
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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“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 Image
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 Image
“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 Image
“The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious and if we do not understand this we understand nothing about man.” — Ernest Becker Copy Share Image
