A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
ROLLO MAYThe hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s own convictions – not obstinately or defiantly
More Rollo May Quotes
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The danger always exists that our technology will serve as a buffer between us and nature, a block between us and the deeper dimensions of our own experience.
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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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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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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
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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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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
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I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.
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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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The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.
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Depression is the inability to construct a future.
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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 purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
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Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.
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Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
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Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One’s religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.
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It is amazing how many hints and guides and intuitions for living come to the sensitive person who has ears to hear what his body is saying.
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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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Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
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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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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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Courage is not a virtue of value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.
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Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
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It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way; and we grasp more fiercely at research, statistics, and technical aids in sex when we have lost the values and meaning of love.
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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 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.
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