Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
It may sound surprising when I say, on the basis of my own clinical practice as well as that of my psychological and psychiatric colleagues, that the chief problem of people in the middle decade of the twentieth century is emptiness.
Rollo May
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
TAGS & TOPICS
Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
May
Basis
Twentieth
Wells
Bases
Decade
Well
Decades
Colleagues
People
Century
Emptiness
Middle
Surprising
Practice
Chief
Sound
Chiefs
Clinical
Problem
Psychological
Psychiatric
More quotes by Rollo May
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
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
Consciousness is the awareness that emerges out of the dialectical tension between possibilities and limitations.
Rollo May
Ecstasy is the accurate term for the intensity of consciousness that occurs in the creative act.
Rollo May
Real freedom is the ability to pause between stimulus and response, and in that pause, choose.
Rollo May
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
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
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
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.
Rollo May
In any discussion of religion and personality integration the question is not whether religion itself makes for health or neurosis, but what kind of religion and how is it used? Freud was in error when he held that religion is per se a compulsion neurosis. Some religion is and some is not.
Rollo May
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
Rollo May
Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us.
Rollo May
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
Love is generally confused with dependence but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo May
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
Tools and techniques ought to be an extension of consciousness, but they can just as easily be a protection from consciousness. Then the tools become defence mechanisms... against the unconscious.
Rollo May
The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.
Rollo May
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
Rollo May
There can be no stronger proof of the impoverishment of our contemporary culture than the popular - though profoundly mistaken - definition of myth as falsehood.
Rollo May
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
