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Many 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.

Rollo May

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.
ROLLO MAY

Authentically Conscious Distinguish Doing Feel Freedom Think Human Personal Quality Speak
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.
ROLLO MAY

Become Differentiate Experience Feeling Many Mature Nuance Passionate Person Strong
The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
ROLLO MAY

Error Evil Face Look Refusal Ultimate
Courage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.
ROLLO MAY

Achieve Anxiety Capacity Courage Freedom Meet Write
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
ROLLO MAY

Make Myth Sense Senseless Way World
Life comes from physical survival; but the good life comes from what we care about.
ROLLO MAY

Care Come Good Life Physical Survival
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.
ROLLO MAY

Being Brief Essence Exist Human Moment Planet Spinning
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.
ROLLO MAY

Absorb Around Become Caught Completely Obvious Something Thing You
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

Artist Brush Communicating Feeling Like Meaningful Paint Share Something Way World
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

Argue Fortunately Good Longer Love Necessary Self
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

Against Being Culture Every Human Me Must Point Say Stand
If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
ROLLO MAY

Being Betray Express Idea Listen Original Own
Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.
ROLLO MAY

Deed Establish Esteem Largely Perform Self Society Those Try Violence
Therapy isn’t curing somebody of something; it is a means of helping a person explore himself, his life, his consciousness. My purpose as a therapist is to find out what it means to be human.
ROLLO MAY

Curing Explore Help Himself Mean Person Somebody Something Therapy
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
ROLLO MAY

Conformity Courage Cowardice Opposite Society
A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.
ROLLO MAY

Anxiety Extent Mert Person Stronger Threat Value
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.
ROLLO MAY

Antagonistic Between Commitment Doubt Mean One Relationship
Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
ROLLO MAY

Confuse Dependence Fact Generally Love Point
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

Amazing Come Ear Guide Hear Hint Intuition Live May Peron Sensitive
People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
ROLLO MAY

Attain Courage Deciosn Decision From Day Multitude People Require Worth
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 MAY

Courage Crucial Decision Freedom Hour Little Occasional Only Own Person Place REquired
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.
ROLLO MAY

Answer Between Change Energy Field Human Met Passion Reach Relationship
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
ROLLO MAY

Absence Ahead Capacity Courage Despair Move Rather Spite
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

Acorn Automatic Become Commitment Growth Mean Necessary Oak
Heroes are necessary in order to enable the citizens to find their own ideals, courage and wisdom in the society. The hero carries our hopes, our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. In the deepest sense the hero is created by us; he or she is born collectively as our own myth.
ROLLO MAY

Citizen Courage Enable Find Hero Ideal Necessary Order Own Society Wisdom
So courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
ROLLO MAY

Courage Fascimile Possible Psychologivcal Value Virtue
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

Courage Effect Inescapable Intimacy Know Outlet Relationship Require Risk

Many 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.

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Popular Authors

Many 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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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