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There is no meaningful yes unless the individual could also have said no.

Rollo May

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Rollo May
Age: 85 †
Born: 1909
Born: April 21
Died: 1994
Died: October 22
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Writer
Meaningful
Unless
Individual
Also

More quotes by Rollo May

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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.
Rollo May
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However it may be confounded or covered up or counterfeited, this elemental capacity to fight against injustice remains the distinguishing characteristic of human beings.
Rollo May
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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
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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They pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.
Rollo May
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Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods.
Rollo May
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Our powerful hunger for myth is a hunger for community. The person without a myth is a person without a home...To be a member of one's community is to share in its myths.
Rollo May
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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
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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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Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world.
Rollo May
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Creativity occurs in an act of encounter and is to be understood with this encounter as its center.
Rollo May
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Intimacy requires courage because risk is inescapable. We cannot know at the outset how the relationship will affect us.
Rollo May
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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
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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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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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Many people feel they are powerless to do anything effective with their lives. It takes courage to break out of the settled mold, but most find conformity more comfortable. This is why the opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it's conformity.
Rollo May
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Communication leads to community, that is, to understanding, intimacy and mutual valuing.
Rollo May
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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.
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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Evil, in this system of ethics, is that which tears apart, shuts out the other person, raises barriers, sets people against each other.
Rollo May