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.
ROLLO MAYHate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
More Rollo May Quotes
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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.
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The 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.
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Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)
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Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.
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Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as a being of worth and dignity.
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
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There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
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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.
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Courage 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.
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The mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones, as in the different passages of music in a symphony. Unfortunately, many of us have feelings limited like notes in a bugle call.
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The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s own convictions – not obstinately or defiantly
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When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself; it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.
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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.
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So courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
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Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.
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