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"20 Ernest Becker Quotes & Sayings

      American     /     View profile
Born: 27 September 1924. Died: 6 March 1974 | Anthropologist | Author |

The road to creativity passes so close to the madhouse and often detours or ends there.

Creativity Close Detours Ends
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The idea of death, the fear of it, haunts the human animal like nothing else; it is a mainspring of human activity - designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny of man.

Idea Death Human Man
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People create the reality they need in order to discover themselves

People Create Reality Order
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War is a sociological safety valve that cleverly diverts popular hatred for the ruling classes into a happy occasion to mutilate or kill foreign enemies.

War Safety Hatred Enemies
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Each society is a hero system which promises victory over evil and death.

Society Victory Evil Death
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Horror alone brings peace of mind.

Horror Alone Peace Mind
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Once you base your whole life striving on a desperate lie, and try to implement that lie, you instrument your own undoing.

Life Striving Lie Undoing
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All power is in essence power to deny mortality.

Power Essence Deny Mortality
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Obviously, all religions fall far short of their own ideals.

Religions Fall short Own Ideals
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Relationship is thus always slavery of a kind, which leaves a residue of guilt.

Relationship Slavery Residue Guilt
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It is fateful and ironic how the lie we need in order to live dooms us to a life that is never really ours.

Fateful Lie Live Life
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Men use one another to assure their personal victory over death.

Men Assure Victory Death
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Guilt results from unused life, from the unlived in us.

Guilt Unused Life Unlived
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To live is to play at the meaning of life...The upshot of this . . . is that it teaches us once and for all that childlike foolishness is the calling of mature men.

Live Play Life Teaches
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To live fully is to live with an awareness of the rumble of terror that underlies everything.

Live Awareness Terror Eveything
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The man of knowledge in our time is bowed down under a burden he never imagined he would ever have: the overproduction of truth that cannot be consumed

Man Knowledge Time Truth
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Mother nature is a brutal bitch, red in tooth and claw, who destroys what she creates

Nature Brutal Destroys Creates
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The world of human aspiration is largely fictitious and if we do not understand this we understand nothing about man.

World Human Understand Man
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What man really fears is not so much extinction, but extinction with insignificance.

Man Fears Extinction Insignificance
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Man's natural and inevitable urge to deny mortality and achieve a heroic self-image are the root causes of human evil.

Man's Natural Achieve Evil
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Ernest Becker Quotes & Sayings