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.
ROLLO MAYMany 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.
More Rollo May Quotes
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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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So courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
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Mass communication–wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued–presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)
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Depression is the inability to construct a future.
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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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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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Understanding and love require a wisdom that comes only with age.
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Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.
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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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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
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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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There is an energy field between humans. And, when we reach out in passion, it is met with an answering passion and changes the relationship forever.
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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 ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
ROLLO MAY