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The 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 May

Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one’s death.
ROLLO MAY

Adult Being Childhood Creatively Human Innocent Marry Merely Passion Youth
Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.
ROLLO MAY

Against Aleck Community Competitive Contemporary Experience Factor Important Individualism Militate
To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.
ROLLO MAY

Believe ContrAction Doubt Fully Greater Moment Presuppose Respect Same
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.
ROLLO MAY

Answer Between Change Energy Field Human Met Passion Reach Relationship
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.
ROLLO MAY

Against Being Culture Every Human Me Must Point Say Stand
It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way; and we grasp more fiercely at research, statistics, and technical aids in sex when we have lost the values and meaning of love.
ROLLO MAY

Being Faster Fiercely Grasp Habit Human Ironic Lost More Old Our Way Research Statistic Technical
So courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
ROLLO MAY

Courage Fascimile Possible Psychologivcal Value Virtue
Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.
ROLLO MAY

Become Ethical Factory Mithilism Person Result Science Want
We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one’s total orientation to life.
ROLLO MAY

Assumption Define Meaning Region
What anxiety means is it’s as though the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, for them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It’s what makes us human beings.
ROLLO MAY

Anxiety Create Door Knock Make Mean Need Something Work
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

Being Betray Express Idea Listen Original Own
Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)
ROLLO MAY

History Jhuman Often Person Rebel Recall Saint Same
Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.
ROLLO MAY

Care Come Good Life Physical Survival
A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is struggling to be born.
ROLLO MAY

Between Consciously Dynamic Hand Insight One Other Person Perspective Some Struggle Think
One does not become fully human painlessly.
ROLLO MAY

Become Does Human Not One Painlessly
The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.
ROLLO MAY

Antagonistic Between Commitment Doubt Mean One Relationship

The 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.

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The 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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