It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
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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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
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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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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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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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Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
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Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.
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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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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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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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The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
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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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Vanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.
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Understanding and love require a wisdom that comes only with age.
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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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Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world.
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When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.
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Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.
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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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One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
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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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People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day.
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Artists love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, they always push on to newer worlds.
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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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This personal freedom to think and feel and speak authentically and to be conscious of so doing is the quality that distinguishes us as human.
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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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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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