Rollo May Quotes

Quotes about:

• Evil, in this system of ethics, is that which tears apart, shuts out the other person, raises barriers, sets people against each other.

  Rollo May

  People, Evil, Tears

  Rollo May (1985). “My Quest for Beauty”, W W Norton & Company Incorporated

  12 Copy quote

• Care is a state in which something does matter; care is the opposite of apathy. Care is the necessary source of eros, the source of human tenderness.

  Rollo May

  Care, Matter, Doe

  "Love & Will".

  8 Copy quote

• The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.

  Rollo May

  Errors, Evil, Looks

  Rollo May (1999). “Freedom and Destiny”, p.227, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It is highly significant and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in such identification through one's own sensitivity with suffering of one's fellow human beings." (p. 16-17)

  Rollo May

  Suffering, Moral, Significant

  6 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rollo May

  Distance, Self, Perspective

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.40, W. W. Norton & Company

  6 Copy quote

• Competitive individualism militates against the experience of community, and that lack of community is a centrally important factor in contemporaneous anxiety.

  Rollo May

  Responsibility, Community, Anxiety

  Rollo May (2015). “The Meaning of Anxiety”, p.132, W. W. Norton & Company

  6 Copy quote

• When people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.

  Rollo May

  Responsibility, People, Suffering

  "Psychology and the Human Dilemma". Book by Rollo May, p. 31, 1967.

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• Power is required for communication. To stand before an indifferent or hostile group and have one's say, or to speak honestly to a friend truths that go deep and hurt these require self-affirmation, self-assertion, and even at times aggression. ... My experience in psychotherapy convinces me that the act which requires the most courage is the simple communication, unpropelled by rage or anger, of one's deepest thoughts to another.

  Rollo May

  Hurt, Communication, Simple

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.245, W. W. Norton & Company

  6 Copy quote

• 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, Conformity, Hallmark

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• Whatever sphere we may be in, there is a profound joy in the realization that we are helping to form the structure of the new world. This is creative courage, however minor or fortuitous our creations may be.

  Rollo May

  Courage, Creativity, Profound

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.35, W. W. Norton & Company

  7 Copy quote

• However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.

  Rollo May

  Fighting, Covered Up, May

  "Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence". Book by Rollo May, Ch. 11 : The Humanity of the Rebel, 1972.

  8 Copy quote

• The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

  Rollo May

  Courage, Soulmate, Self Esteem

  100 Copy quote

• Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.

  Rollo May

  Real, Stimulus And Response, Ability

  79 Copy quote

• 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.

  Rollo May

  Fighting, Vanity, Needs

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.177, W. W. Norton & Company

  16 Copy quote

• The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.

  Rollo May

  Way, Values

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.203, W. W. Norton & Company

  6 Copy quote

• Courage is not a virtue of value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personal values. Without courage our love pales into mere dependency. Without courage our fidelity becomes conformism.

  Rollo May

  Courage, Reality, Like Love

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

  19 Copy quote

• Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

  Rollo May

  Courage, Moving, Despair

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.12, W. W. Norton & Company

  95 Copy quote

• If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.

  Rollo May

  Depression, Ideas, Creating

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.12, W. W. Norton & Company

  88 Copy quote

• 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

  Self Esteem, Society, Trying

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.23, W. W. Norton & Company

  4 Copy quote

• Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.

  Rollo May

  Friendship, Depression, Hate

  Rollo May (1969). “Love and will”

  19 Copy quote

• Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.

  Rollo May

  Running, Long, Apathy

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

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• We must always base our commitment in the center of our own being, or else no commitment will be ultimately authentic.

  Rollo May

  Inspirational, Commitment, Enviromental

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.13, W. W. Norton & Company

  7 Copy quote

• 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. This is what our society needs - not new ideas and inventions; important as these are, and not geniuses and supermen, but persons who can be, that is, persons who have a center of strength within themselves.

  Rollo May

  Running, Exercise, Men

  "Man's Search for Himself" by Rollo May, (p. 56), 1953.

  38 Copy quote

• 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

  Truth, Believe, Doubt

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.21, W. W. Norton & Company

  19 Copy quote

• Indeed, compulsive and rigid moralism arises in given persons precisely as the result of a lack of sense of being. Rigid moralism is a compensatory mechanism by which the individual persuades himself to take over the external sanctions because he has no fundamental assurance that his own choices have any sanction of their own

  Rollo May

  Choices, Fundamentals, Existentialism

  Rollo May (1994). “Existence”, p.45, Jason Aronson

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