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 MAYIntimacy 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?
More Rollo May Quotes
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In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
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Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
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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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Courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.
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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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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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Finding 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.
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If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
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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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The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.
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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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When I fall in love, I feel more valuable and I treat myself with more care. We have all observed the hesitant adolescent, uncertain of himself, who, when he or she falls in love, suddenly walks with a certain inner assuredness and confidence/
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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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What if imagination and art are not frosting at all, but the fountainhead of human experience?
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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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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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Depression is the inability to construct a future.
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The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
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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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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?
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Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.
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People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
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Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?
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One of the easiest ways to be irresponsible about power is to forget you have it.
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Fortunately, however, we no longer have to argue that self -love is not only necessary and good but that it also is a prerequisite for loving others.
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