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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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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Society
Establish
Self
Largely
Trying
Defend
Esteem
Deeds
Significant
Image
Demonstrate
Violence
Performed

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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.
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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.
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There is nobody who totally lacks the courage to change.
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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.
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Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.
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It is highly significant and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in such identification through one's own sensitivity with suffering of one's fellow human beings. (p. 16-17)
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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.
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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.
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One must have at least a readiness to love the other person, broadly speaking, if one is to be able to understand him.
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Terrorism and the whole drug scene are vivid examples of the fact that what persons abhor most of all in life is the possibility that they will not matter.
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The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.
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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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There is a curiously sharp sense of joy - or perhaps better expressed, a sense of mild ecstasy - that comes when you find the particular form required by your creation.
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By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.
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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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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.
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The purpose of psychotherapy is to set people free.
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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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Reason works better when emotions are present the person sees sharper and more accurately when his emotions are engaged.
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It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
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