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

Categorized in : Ideas Unhappy Progress

I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property. by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

property mines personality

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 self exercise

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

Norman O. Brown

common-sense liberty freedom

To be seen is the ambition of ghosts, and to be remembered is the... by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

remembered ambition ghost

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

heirs money religious

The dynamics of capitalism is postponement of enjoyment to the co... by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

enjoyment dynamics capitalism

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

ego self reality

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

essence science long

Meaning is not in things but in between them. by Norman O. Brown

Meaning is not in things but in between them.

Norman O. Brown

The human body is not a thing or a substance, given, but a contin... by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

self-destruction substance body

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

Norman O. Brown

commemoration stage history

To love is to transform; to be a poet. by Norman O. Brown

To love is to transform; to be a poet.

Norman O. Brown

poet love-is love

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

Love without attachment is light. by Norman O. Brown

Love without attachment is light.

Norman O. Brown

attachment light

Whoever expects to walk peacefully in the world must be money's g... by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

walks guests world

All currency is neurotic currency. by Norman O. Brown

All currency is neurotic currency.

Norman O. Brown

neurotic currency

Psychoanalysis can provide a theory of 'progress,' but only by vi... by Norman O. Brown

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

Norman O. Brown

psychology progress society

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 survival humanity

Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad. by Norman O. Brown

Resisting madness is the maddest way of being mad.

Norman O. Brown

resisting mad way

Truth is error burned up. by Norman O. Brown

Truth is error burned up.

Norman O. Brown

truth-is errors truth