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 MAYLove is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
More Rollo May Quotes
-
-
One central need in life is to fulfill its own potential.
ROLLO MAY -
It is dangerous to know, but it is more dangerous not to know.
ROLLO MAY -
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 MAY -
There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
ROLLO MAY -
Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world.
ROLLO MAY -
There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
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 -
Courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.
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 -
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
ROLLO MAY -
Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
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 -
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 -
It is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible.
ROLLO MAY -
Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable.
ROLLO MAY