Ernest Becker Quotes

“...Erich Fromm wondered why most people did not become insane in the face of the existential contradiction between a symbolic self, that seems to give man infinite worth in a timeless scheme of things, and a body that is worth about 98¢.”

“For despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet falling bound to come and quickly go away.”

“the key problem of psychology is that of the specific kind of relatedness of the individual towards the world and not that of the satisfaction or frustration of this or that instinctual need per se”

“since men are equal and thus have the same wish for happiness, and since there is not enough wealth to satisfy them all to the same extent, they necessarily fight against each other and want power to secure the future enjoyment of what they have at present.”

“The field of human relations in Freud’s sense is similar to the market—it is an exchange of satisfaction of biologically given needs, in which the relationship to the other individual is always a means to an end but never an end in itself.”

“There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail.”

“The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent.”

“The successful revolutionary is a statesman, the unsuccessful one a criminal.”

“Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.”

“There is no meaning to life except the meaning man gives his life by the unfolding of his powers.”