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 MAYDeeds 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.
More Rollo May Quotes
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Does not the possibility or the power to do something about the situation at hand confer on one the responsibility to do it?
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Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
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A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.
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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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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.
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Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.
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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.
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One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.
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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?
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One of the easiest ways to be irresponsible about power is to forget you have it.
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To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive – to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before
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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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Vanity and narcissism – the compulsive need to be admired and praised – undermine one’s courage, for one then fights on someone else’s conviction rather than one’s own.
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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
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What anxiety means is it’s as though the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, for them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It’s what makes us human beings.
ROLLO MAY






