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.

Ernest Becker

• Ideas
• Conscious
• Worms
• Monstrous

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Quotes to Explore

• What gets people into trouble with records now is that they want to build something up without substantial musical ideas. Without that as a foundation, you can add all the layers of sound you want - it's still going to sound like a mess.

  

  Walter Becker Steely Dan
  • People
  • Up
  • Ideas

• I believe that communal admiration of individuals is healthy for society. It facilitates, in one way, the base of our universal standard, morals, but also publicly espouses the virtue of certain practices that are kind of like 'inherently good' in some kind of ideas of what the good is.

  

  Jack Gleeson
  • Good
  • Believe
  • Society

• Creativity is generating ideas that are novel and useful. I define originals as people who go beyond dreaming up the ideas and take initiative to make their visions a reality.

  

  Adam Grant
  • People
  • Up
  • Reality

• I have new ideas every day, and I always want to take on new challenges.

  

  Dane Cook
  • Day
  • Ideas
  • Challenges

• Many U.S. organizations believe that I am being barred from the country not because of my actions but because of my ideas. The conclusion seems inescapable.

  

  Tariq Ramadan
  • Ideas
  • Actions
  • Conclusion

• Spiritual life can certainly follow the pattern one sees in the fake martial arts, with most teachers making nebulous and magical claims that never get tested, while their students derange themselves with weird ideas, empty rituals, and other affectations.

  

  Sam Harris
  • Life
  • Ideas
  • Spiritual

• My company Independent Ideas worked with Gucci on a special edition Fiat 500.

  

  Lapo Elkann
  • Ideas
  • Independent
  • Company

• Travelling is really great for giving you tons of ideas, but it's really hard to actually record anything on the road.

  

  Washed Out
  • Great
  • Giving
  • Ideas

• I am quite sensitive to politics, because you know, as an Arab, an Iraqi, all your life, you are very conscious of it.

  

  Zaha Hadid
  • Life
  • Politics
  • Conscious

• The American people... want change. They want big ideas, big reform.

  

  Rahm Emanuel
  • People
  • American
  • Change

• The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

  

  F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Time
  • Mind
  • Ideas

• Necessity is blind until it becomes conscious. Freedom is the consciousness of necessity.

  

  Karl Marx
  • Freedom
  • Blind
  • Conscious

• No grand idea was ever born in a conference, but a lot of foolish ideas have died there.

  

  F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Ideas
  • Idea
  • Born

• It is important to nurture any new ideas and initiatives which can make a difference for Africa.

  

  Wangari Maathai
  • Important
  • Ideas
  • Make A Difference

• I don't think that the Left has a monopoly on bad ideas. I don't think the Right has a monopoly on good ideas.

  

  J. D. Vance
  • Good
  • Bad
  • Think

• Actually, 'Wayne's World 2' I kind of liked. I think 'Wayne's World 2' does have some creative things in it, some ideas in it.

  

  Adam McKay
  • World
  • Ideas
  • Creative

• I think that what we were doing with the live musical version of 'Shrek' was taking the ideas and the structure of the movie and not necessarily reinventing it but reimagining it. It is a very different medium to perform.

  

  Daniel Breaker
  • Different
  • Live
  • Movie

• Just as our eyes need light in order to see, our minds need ideas in order to conceive.

  

  Napoleon Hill
  • Light
  • Eyes
  • Ideas

• Most new discoveries are suddenly-seen things that were always there. A new idea is a light that illuminates presences which simply had no form before the light fell on them.

  

  Susanne Langer
  • Light
  • Ideas
  • Form

• If I have an idea I want to put in a movie, I know what camera will make that look best, and I have ideas for future projects and stuff I'd like to build for those. I think it's just part of how I work, though.

  

  Evan Glodell
  • Work
  • Movie
  • Ideas

• I love writing but hate starting. The page is awfully white, and it says, 'You may have fooled some of the people some of the time, but those days are over, giftless. I'm not your agent, and I'm not your mommy; I'm a white piece of paper. You wanna dance with me?' and I really, really don't. I'll go peaceable-like.

  

  Aaron Sorkin
  • People
  • Time
  • Writing

• The world has conducted a massive macro-economic experiment since the cataclysm of 2008. In Europe, the fans of austerity have had their chance, and the results have been a disaster.

  

  Eliot Spitzer
  • World
  • Chance
  • Disaster

• 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.

  

  Ernest Becker
  • Ideas
  • Conscious
  • Worms