Finding the center of strength within ourselves is in the long run the best contribution we can make to our fellow men. … One person with indigenous inner strength exercises a great calming effect on panic among people around him.
ROLLO MAYMany people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.
More Rollo May Quotes
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However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.
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Humor is the healthy way of feeling “distance” between one’s self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one’s problem with perspective.
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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
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If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
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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.
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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
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Recall how often in human history the saint and the rebel have be the same person. (p. 35)
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A mien which seems to say, “You are looking at somebody now.” For this inner sense of worth that comes with being in love does not seem to depend essentially on whether the love is returned or not.
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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
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People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
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It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way; and we grasp more fiercely at research, statistics, and technical aids in sex when we have lost the values and meaning of love.
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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.
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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.
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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