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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.

Rollo May

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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Live
Culture
Theory
Sciences
Time
Social
Present
Relative
Helping
Particular
Historical
Given
Help
Method
Facts
Actually
Perspective
Moments
Free
Danger
Also
Fact
Especially
Ever
Moment
Development
Existential

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Freedom does not come automatically it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound it must be achieved each day.
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When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination.
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Every authentic artist is engaged in this creating of the conscience of the race, even though he or she may be unaware of the fact.
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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
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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.
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It is dangerous to know, but it is more dangerous not to know.
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It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.
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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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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.
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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.
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Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us.
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Hate is not the opposite of love apathy is.
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When we are dealing with human beings, no truth has reality by itself it is always dependent upon the reality of the immediate relationship.
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
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The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.
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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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The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
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We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will to have creativity, but we can will to give ourselves to the creative experience with intensity of dedication and commitment.
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I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.
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In religion, it is not the sycophants or those who cling most faithfully to the status quo who are ultimately praised. It is the insurgents.
Rollo May