Ernest Becker Quotes
The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil.
Quotes to Explore
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Imagine trying to learn without a dry place to sleep, eat, and do homework. Children cannot succeed in school if their lives out of school are in total chaos.
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Apartheid either is or is not. And it must not be.
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Most people can recall schoolyard confrontations with with bullies. Boys were expected to deal with them by standing their ground and slugging it out, even, as one man told me, "if you knew you were going to get your head bashed in. You had to show you could take it, and you'd die rather than cry.
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We hear a great deal of lamentation these days about writers having all taken themselves to the colleges and universities where they live decorously instead of going out and getting firsthand information about life. The fact is that anybody who has survived his childhood has enough information about life to last him the rest of his days. If you can't make something out of a little experience, you probably won't be able to make it out of a lot. The writer's business is to contemplate experience, not to be merged in it.
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I don't fight creativity. I don't fight against not being creative. If I'm not being creative, I'm not forcing it.
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He dropped the pretense, and dropped his head, so his brow came to rest against the sun-warmed top of hers. His arms went around her and drew her in, and Karou and Akiva were like two matches struck against each other to flare starlight. With a sigh, she softened, and it was pure homecoming to melt against him and rest.
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The security of Society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of Society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members.
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Though perhaps less universally known than such figures as Einstein or Gandhi (who became symbols of our time) Daisetz Suzuki was no less remarkable a man than these. And though his work may not have had such resounding and public effect, he contributed no little to the spiritual and intellectual revolution of our time.
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In my time it was the Kennedy call to public service in the Third World. Had there been no Peace Corps, my life would have been radically different.
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We all have a responsibility to volunteer somewhere and I'm lucky that I get the education and get taken to places to see what's out there and see what's happening and to then be a part of it in hopefully an impactful way.
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Walking humbly, you are more of a man than you were when you walked proudly.
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There are a lot of African-Americans in that region of the country. We pay particular attention to these communities because historically aid doesn't get into those communities right away.
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Miracle Max: Have fun stormin' da castle. Valerie: Think it'll work? Miracle Max: It would take a miracle.
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One should see that all appearance is like mist and fog.
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The world needs many more humanitarians than it needs warriors, but there can be none of the former without enough of the latter.
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I mean, the paradox is that whereas the screen, it seems to me - the cinema can absorb endless amounts of music, it cannot really with comfort absorb large amounts of words. Not nearly as many words, that is to say, as a stage can.
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The greatest cause of evil included all human motives in one giant paradox. Good and bad were so inextricably mixed that we couldn't make them out; bad seemed to lead to good, and good motives led to bad. The paradox is that evil comes from man's urge to heroic victory over evil.
