Rollo May Quotes - Page 5

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.

Mass communication--wonder as it may be technologically and something to be appreciated and valued--presents us wit a serious daner, the danger of conformism, due to the fact that we all view the same things at the same time in all the cities of the country. (p. 73)

Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.

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.

Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations.

Purpose in the human being is a much more complex phenomenon than what used to be called will power.

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

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.

Something is born, comes into being, something that did not exist before - which is as good a definition of creativity as we can get.

All our feelings, like the artist's paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world.

Courage is the basic virtue for everyone so long as he continues to grow, to move ahead.

By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.

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.

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.

A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.

Understanding and love require a wisdom that comes only with age.

Forge in the smithy of your soul.

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.

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.

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.

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? The one thing we can be certain of is that if we let ourselves fully into the relationship for good or evil, we will not come out unaffected.

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

Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100)

A historical perspective can also help free us from the ever-present danger -- especially at danger in the social sciences -- of absolutizing a theory or method which is actually relative to the fact that we live at a given moment in time in the development of our particular culture.

It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.