The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.
ROLLO MAYThe purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
More Rollo May Quotes
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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.
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The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.
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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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To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before
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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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Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
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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.
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Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound; it must be achieved each day.
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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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Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.
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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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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.
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However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
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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.
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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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Therapy isn’t curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human.
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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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It is dangerous to know, but it is more dangerous not to know.
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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.
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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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Memory is not just the imprint of the past time upon us; it is the keeper of what is meaningful for our deepest hopes and fears.
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The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning “heart.” Thus just as one’s heart, by pumping blood to one’s arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function.
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The essence of being human is that, in the brief moment we exist on this spinning planet, we can love some persons and some things, in spite of the fact that time and death will ultimately claim us all.
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Courage is required not only in a person’s occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.
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Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
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