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
Self
Perspective
Way
Standing
Healthy
Humor
Feeling
Looking
Feelings
Problem
Distance

More quotes by Rollo May

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Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.
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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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.
Rollo May
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The rebel is committed to giving a form and pattern to the world. It is a pattern born of the indomitable thrust of the human mind, the mind which makes out of the mass of meaningless data in the world an order and a form.
Rollo May
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Unconscious insights or answers to problems that come in reverie do not come hit or miss... they pertain to those areas in which the person consciously has worked laboriously and with dedication.
Rollo May
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Physical courage in whatever scene ... seems to hinge on whether the individual can feel he is fighting for others as well as himself.
Rollo May
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
Rollo May
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Life comes from physical survival but the good life comes from what we care about.
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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The creative act arises out of the struggle of human beings with and against that which limits them.
Rollo May
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Science, Nietzsche had warned, is becoming a factory, and the result will be ethical nihilism.
Rollo May
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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.
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
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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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Hate is not the opposite of love apathy is.
Rollo May
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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
Rollo May
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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.
Rollo May
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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.
Rollo May
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Whereas moral courage is the righting of wrongs, creative courage, in contrast, is the discovering of new forms, new symbols, new patterns on which a new society can be built.
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.
Rollo May