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The irony of man's condition is that the deepest need is to be free of the anxiety of death and annihilation; but it is life itself which awakens it, and so we must shrink from being fully alive.

— Ernest Becker The Denial of Death (1973)

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Philosophy

More quotes by Ernest Becker

Man cannot endure his own littleness unless he can translate it into meaningfulness on the largest possible level.

The Denial of Death (1973)

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

The Denial of Death (1973)

All religions fall far short of their own ideals.

The Denial of Death (1973)

Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility,; especially when the choice comes too late in life for one to be able to start over again.

The Denial of Death (1973)

The neurotic opts out of life because he is having trouble maintaining his illusions about it, which proves nothing less than that life is possible only with illusions.

The Denial of Death (1973)

All Ernest Becker quotes →

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped.

Robert Anton Wilson

Every morning
I shall concern myself anew about the boundary
Between the love-deed-Yes and the power-deed-No
And pressing forward honor reality.

Martin Buber Power and Love (1926)

In the province of the mind, what one believes to be true is true or becomes true, within certain limits to be found experientially and experimentally. These limits are further beliefs to be transcended.

John C. Lilly The Human Biocomputer (1974)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Ernest Becker (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.