Ernest Becker Quotes
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, consiousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such a complex and fancy worm food?
Quotes to Explore
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The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.
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And I don't believe that melodramatic feelings are laughable - they should be taken absolutely seriously.
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Music is what our feelings sound like.
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I've got weird conflicting feelings about my generation.
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You don't talk to terror organizations!
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Danny Ferry did a very good job when he was here and put the franchise up to a certain level, as did Mike Brown, and his contract had ended after five years, and, ultimately, both sides decided they wanted to do other things. No hard feelings at all there.
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I'm very conscious of people having pretty short attention spans: I know, I'm guilty of it. I'm 17 now: what happens by the time I'm 21, am I a burn-out or something? Will they still listen to my record?
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When you know you have 1,000 people sitting on the edge of their seats in silence because of a shift that just happened on stage, there is no better feeling.
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Theres nothing more depressing than having everything and still feeling sad. We must learn to water our spiritual garden.
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Let's say I'm at a party and I don't like the feeling I'm getting, I'll just leave. Why do I have to be there?
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Other people are not here to fulfill our needs or meet our expectations, nor will they always treat us well. Failure to accept this will generate feelings of anger and resentment. Peace of mind comes with taking people as they are and emphasizing the positive.
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Even animals who sometimes seem unlovable to humans, have also feelings. They can suffer just as we do.
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Most players who play tennis love the game. But I think you also have to respect it. You want to do everything you can in your power to do your best. And for me, I know I get insane guilt if I go home at the end of the day and don't feel I've done everything I can. If I know I could have done something better, I have this uneasy feeling.
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The only way you can make a marriage work is as free, independent people. It needs to be based on the good feelings that you have for each other, not on need.
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The true critic is he who bears within himself the dreams and ideas and feelings of myriad generations, and to whom no form of thought is alien, no emotional impulse obscure.
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The reason we all like to think so well of others is that we are all afraid for ourselves. The basis of optimism is sheer terror.
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Mama says that, happiness is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you're feeling blue.
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If you are not grieving, you are not conscious. But if you are not rejoicing in the possibilities of how this could all change, then you are not looking through the filter of the greatest spiritual perspicacity.
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What is really important in Man is the part of him that we do not understand. Of much of it we are not even conscious, just as we are not normally conscious of keeping up our circulation by our heart-pump, though if we neglect it we die.
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When I've taught writing to five, six, and seven year olds, it's not very different than talking to an adult writer. They're writers then, and when they get to be young teenagers they're not anymore. You might go and talk to them about writing, and they'll be very self-conscious or will have detached themselves from the group.
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The terror of drugs is a terror of giving up control. This is what people are most alarmed about by psychedelics, is the giving up control.
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All my life, people have asked me what I was so mad about. 'Why you so mad?' And I was never mad. I'm not mad, I just look mad.
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The wise man seeks little joys, knowing that life is long and that his quota of great joys is distinctly limited.
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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, consiousness of self, deep inner feelings, an excruciating inner yearning for life and self-expression and with all this yet to die. It seems like a hoax, which is why one type of cultural man rebels openly against the idea of God. What kind of deity would crate such a complex and fancy worm food?
