One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
ROLLO MAYOne of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
ROLLO MAYWhen we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.
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 MAYA myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
ROLLO MAYCreativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world.
ROLLO MAYFinding the center of strength within ourselves is in the long run the best contribution we can make to our fellow men. … One person with indigenous inner strength exercises a great calming effect on panic among people around him.
ROLLO MAYArtists love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, they always push on to newer worlds.
ROLLO MAYFreedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
ROLLO MAYRecall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)
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 MAYThis is what our society needs – not new ideas and inventions; important as these are, and not geniuses and supermen, but persons who can be, that is, persons who have a center of strength within themselves.
ROLLO MAYThere can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular – though profoundly mistaken – definition of myth as falsehood.
ROLLO MAYEvery 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 MAYThe purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
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 MAYAll people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.
ROLLO MAY