“Humor is the healthy way of feeling “distance” between one’s self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one’s problem with perspective.”

Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence.

Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable.

The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s own convictions – not obstinately or defiantly

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.

Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?

A mien which seems to say, “You are looking at somebody now.” For this inner sense of worth that comes with being in love does not seem to depend essentially on whether the love is returned or not.

There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.

Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.

Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us. Like a chemical mixture, if one of us is changed, both of us will be. Will we grow in self-actualization, or will it destroy us?

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.

Depression is the inability to construct a future.

Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, “This is me and the world be damned!” Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.

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.

The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have.

Creativity 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.

Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One’s religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.

There are two things which a man should scrupulously avoid: giving advice that he would not follow, and asking advice when he is determined to pursue his own opinion.

Our grand business undoubtedly is, not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand.

The more we distance negativity, the more we get closer to happiness.

Everywhere is within walking distance if you have the time.

The best way to create emotional or spiritual distance between me and another person is for them to come up to me and go, ‘yaassssss.’

Success isn’t how far you got, but the distance you traveled from where you started.

I learned some invaluable lessons in Nashville that apply to both farming and show business: Do not corner something you know is meaner than you; keep skunks of all kinds at a distance; if you forgive your enemies, it messes up their heads.

There are some people you’ve just got to love from a distance.