Rollo May Quotes - Page 4

Quotes about:

• We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.

  Rollo May

  Religious, Attitude, Intellectual

  Rollo May Ph.D. (1953). “Man's Search for Himself”

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• We express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being.

  Rollo May

  Creativity, Creating, Sequels

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.8, W. W. Norton & Company

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• 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

  Courage, Moving, Anxiety

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.169, W. W. Norton & Company

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• There is no meaningful yes unless the individual could also have said no.

  Rollo May

  Meaningful, Individual, Said

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

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• Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom.

  Rollo May

  Mean, Creativity, Self

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.172, W. W. Norton & Company

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• The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have.

  Rollo May

  Reality, Firsts, Moments

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.200, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.

  Rollo May

  Nihilism, Becoming, Existential

  Rollo May (1994). “Existence”, p.36, Jason Aronson

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• The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

  Rollo May

  Relationship, Peace, Mean

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

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• 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

  Strong, Symphony, Mature Person

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• Artists love to immerse themselves in chaos in order to put it into form, just as God created form out of chaos in Genesis. Forever unsatisfied with the mundane, the apathetic, the conventional, they always push on to newer worlds.

  Rollo May

  Artist, Order, Forever

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• The danger always exists that our technology will serve as a buffer between us and nature, a block between us and the deeper dimensions of our own experience.

  Rollo May

  Block, Technology, Dimensions

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.70, W. W. Norton & Company

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• There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.

  Rollo May

  Character, Doe, Sooner Or Later

  Rollo May (1999). “Freedom and Destiny”, p.57, W. W. Norton & Company

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• 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

  Art, Healing, Games

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

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• It is infinitely safer to know that the man at the top has his doubts, as you and I have ours, yet has the courage to move ahead in spite of these doubts.

  Rollo May

  Moving, Men, Doubt

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• 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

  Art, Creativity, Rivers

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.115, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Everyone has a need for significance; and if we can't make that possible, or even probable, in our society, then it will be obtained in destructive ways.

  Rollo May

  Way, Needs, Our Society

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.179, W. W. Norton & Company

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• I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.

  Rollo May

  Healing, Process, Cures

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.14, W. W. Norton & Company

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• It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one's inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.

  Rollo May

  Freedom, Moving, Journey

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.174, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Creativity occurs in an act of encounter and is to be understood with this encounter as its center.

  Rollo May

  Creativity, Encounters, Understood

  "The Courage to Create".

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• The function of the rebel is to shake the fixated mores of the rigid order of civilization; and this shaking, though painful, is necessary if the society is to be saved from boredom and apathy. Obviously I do not refer to everyone who calls himself a rebel, but only to the authentic rebel. Civilization gets its first flower from the rebel.

  Rollo May

  Flower, Order, Civilization

  Rollo May (1998). “Power and Innocence: A Search for the Sources of Violence”, p.222, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Suffering is nature's way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.

  Rollo May

  Attitude, Character, Opportunity

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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.

  Rollo May

  Meaningful, Memories, Past

  "Man's Search for Himself" by Rollo May, (p. 220), 1953.

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• Receptivity requires a nimbleness, a fine-honed sensitivity in order to let one's self be the vehicle of whatever vision may emerge.

  Rollo May

  Self, Order, Vision

  Rollo May (1994). “The Courage to Create”, p.80, W. W. Norton & Company

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• No one can separate themselves from one's social group and remain healthy, because the very structure of personality is dependent on the community.

  Rollo May

  Personality, Community, Healthy

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• Heroes are necessary in order to enable the citizens to find their own ideals, courage and wisdom in the society. The hero carries our hopes, our aspirations, our ideals, our beliefs. In the deepest sense the hero is created by us; he or she is born collectively as our own myth. This is what makes heroism so important: it reflects our own sense of identity and from this our own heroism is molded.

  Rollo May

  Inspiring, Hero, Order

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