Quote

Humor is the healthy way of feeling distance between one's self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one's problem with perspective.

Rollo May

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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Feeling
Looking
Feelings
Problem
Distance
Self
Perspective
Way
Standing
Healthy
Humor

More quotes by Rollo May

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Care is a state in which something does matter care is the opposite of apathy. Care is the necessary source of eros, the source of human tenderness.
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Courage is necessary to make being and becoming possible.
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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
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Creativity is a yearning for immortality
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Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.
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Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
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Courage is the basic virtue for everyone so long as he continues to grow, to move ahead.
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It is amazing how many hints and guides and intuitions for living come to the sensitive person who has ears to hear what his body is saying.
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If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself.
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Deeds of violence in our society are performed largely by those trying to establish their self-esteem, to defend their self-image, and to demonstrate that they, too, are significant.
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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.
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One does not become fully human painlessly.
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Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all.
Rollo May
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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.
Rollo May
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Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable.
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There is no authentic inner freedom that does not, sooner or later, also affect and change human history.
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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
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If you do not express your own original ideas, if you do not listen to your own being, you will have betrayed yourself.
Rollo May
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We must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong. People who claim to be absolutely convinced that their stand is the only right one...is a dead giveaway of unconscious doubt. Commitment is healthiest when it is not without doubt, but in spite of doubt.
Rollo May
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To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before
Rollo May