The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s own convictions – not obstinately or defiantly
ROLLO MAYUnderstanding and love require a wisdom that comes only with age.
More Rollo May Quotes
-
-
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 -
So courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.
ROLLO MAY -
Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.
ROLLO MAY -
One central need in life is to fulfill its own potential.
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 -
A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
ROLLO MAY -
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 -
Every human being must have a point at which he stands against the culture, where he says, “This is me and the world be damned!” Leaders have always been the ones to stand against the society – Socrates, Christ, Freud, all the way down the line.
ROLLO MAY -
Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem.
ROLLO MAY -
To believe fully and at the same moment to have doubts is not at all a contradiction: it presupposes a greater respect for truth, an awareness that truth always goes beyond anything that can be said or done at any given moment.
ROLLO MAY -
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
ROLLO MAY -
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.
ROLLO MAY -
People only change when it becomes too dangerous to stay the way they are.
ROLLO MAY -
Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)
ROLLO MAY -
One of the easiest ways to be irresponsible about power is to forget you have it.
ROLLO MAY