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.
ROLLO MAYArtists 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.
More Rollo May Quotes
-
-
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
ROLLO MAY -
Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
This is what makes heroism so important: it reflects our own sense of identity and from this our own heroism is molded.
ROLLO MAY -
Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
ROLLO MAY -
Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.
ROLLO MAY -
Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
ROLLO MAY -
There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.
ROLLO MAY -
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
ROLLO MAY -
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 MAY -
Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s own convictions – not obstinately or defiantly
ROLLO MAY -
All our feelings, like the artist’s paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world.
ROLLO MAY -
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
One does not become fully human painlessly.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
Suffering is nature’s way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
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 MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY