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One does not become fully human painlessly.

Rollo May

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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Painlessly
Fully
Reality
Become
Doe
Human
Humans

More quotes by Rollo May

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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
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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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Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
Rollo May
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I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.
Rollo May
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The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person. Sex and eros, anger and rage, and the craving for power are examples. The daimonic can be either creative or destructive and is normally both.
Rollo May
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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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Courage is the basic virtue for everyone so long as he continues to grow, to move ahead.
Rollo May
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Our thesis is that symbols and myths are an expression of man's unique self-consciousness, his capacity to transcend the immediate concrete situation and see his life in terms of 'the possible,' and that this capacity is one aspect of his experiencing himself as a being having a world.
Rollo May
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Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable.
Rollo May
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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
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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
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It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
Rollo May
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The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
Rollo May
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People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day to day.
Rollo May
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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
Rollo May
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Our age is one of transition, in which the normal channels for utilizing the daimonic are denied and such ages tend to be times when the daimonic is expressed in its most destructive form.
Rollo May
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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
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Love is generally confused with dependence but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
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.
Rollo May
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A dynamic struggle goes on within a person between what he or she consciously thinks on the one hand and, on the other, some insight, some perspective that is struggling to be born.
Rollo May