Rollo May Quotes
Top 100 wise famous quotes and sayings by Rollo May
Rollo May Famous Quotes & Sayings
Discover top inspirational quotes from Rollo May on Wise Famous Quotes.
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, this is me and the damned world can go to hell.
When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.
Whether we are 'Freudians' or not, as I am not, we are surely all post-Freudian. He set the tone for vast changes in our culture
By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.
Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
The creative process must be explored ... as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves.
One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
It is amazing how many hints and guides and intuitions for living come to the sensitive person who has ears to hear what his body is saying.
There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself. -Rollo May
Myths are like the beams in a house: not exposed to outside view, they are the structure which holds the house together so people can live in it.
There is an energy field between humans. And, when we reach out in passion, it is met with an answering passion and changes the relationship forever.
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
We must always base our commitment in the center of our own being, or else no commitment will be ultimately authentic.
Physical courage in whatever scene ... seems to hinge on whether the individual can feel he is fighting for others as well as himself.
No one can separate themselves from one's social group and remain healthy, because the very structure of personality is dependent on the community.
All our feelings, like the artist's paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world.
Evil, in this system of ethics, is that which tears apart, shuts out the other person, raises barriers, sets people against each other.
Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
Neurosis may be called a negating of possibilities; it is the shrinking up of one's world. The development of the self is this radically curtailed.
Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound; it must be achieved each day.
The schizoid man is the natural product of the technological man. It is one way to live and is increasingly utilized and it may explode into violence.
In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents.
The insight is born with anxiety, guilt and the joy and gratification that is inseparable from the actualizing of a new idea or vision.
I became a psychotherapist because that's where people will unburden themselves, where they will show what is in their hearts.
Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?
All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.
Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom.
It is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible.
Creativity occurs as an act of encounter, and is to be understood with this encounter at the center.
Receptivity requires a nimbleness, a fine-honed sensitivity in order to let one's self be the vehicle of whatever vision may emerge.
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
Something is born, comes into being, something which did not exist before - which is as good a definition of creativity as we can get.
Finding the center of strenghth within ourselves is in the long run best contribution we can do to our fellow man
One longs for the presence of a leader like Lincoln, who openly admitted his doubts and as openly preserved his commitment.
The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.
In my clinical experience, the greatest block to a person's development is his having to take on a way of life which is not rooted in his own powers.
When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.
Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations.
Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.
The personal freedom to think & feel & speak authentically & to be conscious of so doing is the quality that distinguishes us as human.
Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.
What Kierkegaard said about love is also true of creativity: every person must start at the beginning.
In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.
Purpose in the human being is a much more complex phenomenon than what used to be called will power.
Myth safeguards and enforces morality, as Malinowski proclaimed, and if there are no myths there will be no morality.
One must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him.
To say a person is a coward has no more meaning than to say he is lazy: It simply tells us that some vital potentiality is unrealized or blocked.
The battle with the gods thus hinges on our own mortality! Creativity is a yearning for immortality.
Along with the loss of the sense of self has gone a loss of our language for communicating deeply personal meanings to each other.