Norman O. Brown Quotes

• I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.

  Norman O. Brown

  Personality, Property, Mines

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.145, Univ of California Press

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• To be seen is the ambition of ghosts, and to be remembered is the ambition of the dead.

  Norman O. Brown

  Ambition, Ghost, Remembered

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.99, Univ of California Press

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• The human body is not a thing or substance, given, but a continuous creation. The human body is an energy system which is never a complete structure; never static; is in perpetual inner self-construction and self-destruction; we destroy in order to make it new.

  Norman O. Brown

  Health, Exercise, Self

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.155, Univ of California Press

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• Mankind today is still making history without having any conscious idea of what it really wants or under what conditions it would stop being unhappy; in fact what it is doing seems to be making itself more unhappy and calling that unhappiness progress.

  Norman O. Brown

  Ideas, Progress, Unhappy

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.16, Wesleyan University Press

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• Love without attachment is light.

  Norman O. Brown

  Light, Attachment

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 Edition”, p.260, Univ of California Press

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• Meaning is not in things but in between them.

  Norman O. Brown

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.247, Univ of California Press

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• Freedom is poetry, taking liberties with words, breaking the rules of normal speech, violating common sense. Freedom is violence.

  Norman O. Brown

  Freedom, Common Sense, Liberty

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• The money complex is the demonic, and the demonic is God's ape; the money complex is therefore the heir to and substitute for the religious complex, an attempt to find God in things.

  Norman O. Brown

  Religious, Money, Heirs

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.240, Wesleyan University Press

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• In its famous paradox, the equation of money and excrement, psychoanalysis becomes the first science to state what common sense and the poets have long known - that the essence of money is in its absolute worthlessness.

  Norman O. Brown

  Science, Essence, Long

  Norman O. Brown (1972). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”

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• The dynamics of capitalism is postponement of enjoyment to the constantly postponed future.

  Norman O. Brown

  Dynamics, Enjoyment, Capitalism

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.273, Wesleyan University Press

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• The boundary line between self and external world bears no relation to reality; the distinction between ego and world is made by spitting out part of the inside, and swallowing in part of the outside.

  Norman O. Brown

  Reality, Self, Ego

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.143, Univ of California Press

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• I perceive a necessary gap between seeing and being. I would not be able to have said certain things if I had been under the obligation to unify the word and the deed. As it is I can let my words reach out and net impossible things - things that are impossible for me to do. And this is a way to pay the price for saying or seeing things.

  Norman O. Brown

  Pay The Price, Impossible Things, Deeds

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• Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad.

  Norman O. Brown

  Mad, Way, Resisting

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• The human body is not a thing or a substance, given, but a continuous creation.

  Norman O. Brown

  Substance, Body, Self Destruction

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.155, Univ of California Press

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• Whoever expects to walk peacefully in the world must be money's guest.

  Norman O. Brown

  World, Guests, Walks

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• To love is to transform; to be a poet.

  Norman O. Brown

  Love, Love Is, Poet

  Norman O. Brown (1991). “Apocalypse and/or Metamorphosis”, p.10, Univ of California Press

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• History is the enactment of ritual on a permanent and universal stage; and its perpetual commemoration.

  Norman O. Brown

  History, Stage, Commemoration

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.116, Univ of California Press

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• The insane do not share the normal prejudice in favor of external reality.

  Norman O. Brown

  Reality, Insane, Prejudice

  Norman O. Brown (1968). “Love's Body”

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• Utopian speculations ... must come back into fashion. They are a way of affirming faith in the possibility of solving problems that seem at the moment insoluble. Today even the survival of humanity is a utopian hope.

  Norman O. Brown

  Fashion, Humanity, Survival

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.305, Wesleyan University Press

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• To be is to be vulnerable.

  Norman O. Brown

  Vulnerable, Vulnerability

  Norman O. Brown (1990). “Love's Body, Reissue of 1966 edition”, p.184, Univ of California Press

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• Psychoanalysis can provide a theory of 'progress,' but only by viewing history as a neurosis.

  Norman O. Brown

  Psychology, Progress, Society

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.18, Wesleyan University Press

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• Truth is error burned up.

  Norman O. Brown

  Truth, Errors, Truth Is

  Norman O. Brown (1968). “Love's Body”

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• All currency is neurotic currency.

  Norman O. Brown

  Currency, Neurotic

  Norman O. Brown (2012). “Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History”, p.271, Wesleyan University Press

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