Better guilt than the terrible burden of freedom and responsibility.
Ernest BeckerRead
If the love object is divine perfection, then one's own self is elevated by joining one's destiny to it... All our guilt, fear, and even our mortality itself can be purged in a perfect consummation with perfection itself.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Connecting with an ideal love can lead to personal elevation and liberation from negative emotions.
This quote reflects the idea that when one forms a connection with what they perceive as divine perfection or ideal love, it can have profound effects on their own self-worth and existence. By aligning oneself with such perfection, an individual can shed feelings of guilt, fear, and the burdens of mortality, finding a sense of peace and fulfillment in the process.
Themes
LovePerfectionSelfDestinyElevation
In practice
Example use cases
In a wedding ceremony, the officiant might say this quote to highlight the power of love in elevating a couple.
More from Ernest Becker
All quotes →The artist takes in the world, but instead of being oppressed by it, he reworks it in his own personality and recreates it in the work of art.
Ernest BeckerRead
When you confuse personal love and cosmic heroism you are bound to fail in both spheres. The impossibility of the heroism undermines the love, even if it is real. This double failure is what produces the sense of utter despair that we see in modern man... Love, then, is seen a religious problem
Ernest BeckerRead
All power is in essence power to deny mortality.
Ernest BeckerRead
Each society is a hero system which promises victory over evil and death.
Ernest BeckerRead
We might say that psychoanalysis revealed to us the complex penalties of denying the truth of man's condition, what we might call the costs of pretending not to be mad.
Ernest BeckerRead
Similar quotes
Love only what befalls you and is spun for you by fate.
Marcus AureliusRead
Love will enter cloaked in friendship's name.
OvidRead
Wouldst thou learn thy Lord's meaning in this thing? Learn it well: Love was His meaning. Who shewed it thee? Love. What shewed He thee? Love. Wherefore shewed it He? For Love. Hold thee therein and thou shalt learn and know more in the same. But thou shalt never know nor learn therein other thing without end. Thus was I learned that Love was our Lord's meaning.
Julian Of NorwichRead
She had the revelation one Sunday that while the other instruments played for everyone the violen played for her alone .
Gabriel Garcia MarquezRead
He's all my exercise, my mirth, my matter.
William ShakespeareRead
I have loved and been in love. There's a big difference.
Katharine HepburnRead