41 Quotes by Norman O. Brown

The solution to the problem of identity is, get lost.

To be alive is to be burning.

Jokes and folklore and poetic metaphor, the wisdom of folly, tell the secret truth.

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

Compare Nietzsche’s doctrine of the necessary connection between suffering and art: “What must this people have suffered, that they might become thus beautiful.” 6.

The alternative to dualism is dialectics: that is to say, love.

The human libido is essentially narcissistic, but it seeks a world to love as it loves itself.

The human ego must face the Dionysian reality, and therefore a great work of self-transformation lies ahead of it. For Nietzsche was right in saying that the Apollonian preserves, the Dionysian destroys, self-consciousness.

I’ve been impressed by the extent to which one gets sentenced by one’s own sentences. One explores certain things in play and then in a strange way they become commitments which one has to live. I have gained a deep respect for the demonic power of the word. Words are not idle. They have consequences.