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.
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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
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All power is in essence power to deny mortality.
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Each society is a hero system which promises victory over evil and death.
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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.
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