Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
ROLLO MAYViolence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
ROLLO MAYTherapy isn’t curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human.
ROLLO MAYThe opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
ROLLO MAYMass communication–wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued–presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)
ROLLO MAYCreativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
ROLLO MAYThe acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them.
ROLLO MAYCompetitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.
ROLLO MAYThe word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning “heart.” Thus just as one’s heart, by pumping blood to one’s arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function.
ROLLO MAYIt is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible.
ROLLO MAYCourage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.
ROLLO MAYHate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
ROLLO MAYVanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.
ROLLO MAYPeople attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day.
ROLLO MAYThe one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected.
ROLLO MAYWhen you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.
ROLLO MAYMemory 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.
ROLLO MAY