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.
ROLLO MAYGood 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.
More Rollo May Quotes
-
-
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 -
Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy.
ROLLO MAY -
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
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 -
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 -
There can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular – though profoundly mistaken – definition of myth as falsehood.
ROLLO MAY -
One of the easiest ways to be irresponsible about power is to forget you have it.
ROLLO MAY -
Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
ROLLO MAY -
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 -
The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.
ROLLO MAY -
The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning “heart.” Thus just as one’s heart, by pumping blood to one’s arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function.
ROLLO MAY -
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 -
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 -
Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence.
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