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?
ROLLO MAYJoy, 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.
More Rollo May Quotes
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When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.
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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.
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There can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular – though profoundly mistaken – definition of myth as falsehood.
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This 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.
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A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.
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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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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.
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Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable.
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Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
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All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life.
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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.
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A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
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Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.
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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.
ROLLO MAY






