Quote

The word courage comes from the same stem as the French word Coeur, meaning heart. Thus just as one's heart, by pumping blood to one's arms, legs, and brain enables all the other physical organs to function, so courage makes possible all the psychological virtues. Without courage other values wither away into mere facsimiles of virtue.

Rollo May

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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Makes
Blood
Thus
Wither
Without
Virtue
Mere
Enables
Heart
Brain
Function
Stem
Possible
Physical
Organs
Word
Meaning
Virtues
Values
Arms
French
Comes
Courage
Psychological
Coeur
Away
Inspiration
Legs
Pumping

More quotes by Rollo May

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Creativity is the result of a struggle between vitality and form. As anyone who has tried to write a sonnet or scan poetry, is aware, the form ideally do not take away from the creativity but may add to it.
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It may sound surprising when I say, on the basis of my own clinical practice as well as that of my psychological and psychiatric colleagues, that the chief problem of people in the middle decade of the twentieth century is emptiness.
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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.
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There is no meaningful yes unless the individual could also have said no.
Rollo May
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Anxiety is essential to the human condition. The confrontation with anxiety can relieve us from boredom, sharpen the sensitivity and assure the presence of tension that is necessary to preserve human existence.
Rollo May
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It is well to remind ourselves that anxiety signifies a conflict, and so long as a conflict is going on, a constructive solution is possible.
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
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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.
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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
Rollo May
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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
Rollo May
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It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.
Rollo May
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Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.
Rollo May
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Professors will lecture with more inspiration if they occasionally alternate the classroom with the beach: authors will write better when, as Macaulay used to do, they write for two hours, then pitch quoits, and then go back to their writing. But certainly more than the mere mechanical alternation is involved.
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Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations.
Rollo May
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There is an energy field between humans. And, when we reach out in passion, it is met with an answering passion and changes the relationship forever.
Rollo May
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They pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.
Rollo May
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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
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Apathy adds up, in the long run, to cowardice.
Rollo May
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The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity. Receptivity is the artist's holding him or herself alive and open to hear what being may speak.
Rollo May