Rollo May Quotes

136 Sourced Quotes

Artistic symbols and myths speak out of the primordial, preconscious realm of the mind which is powerful and chaotic. Both symbol and myth are ways of bringing order and form into this chaos.

Rollo May
In any age courage is the simple virtue needed for a human being to traverse the rocky road from infancy to maturity of personality. But in an age of anxiety, an age of her morality and personal isolation, courage is a sine qua non. In periods when the mores of the society were more consistent guides, the individual was more firmly cushioned in his crises of development; but in times of transition like ours, the individual is thrown on his own at an earlier age and for a longer period.

Rollo May
The self is made up, on its growing edge, of the models, forms, metaphors, myths, and all other kinds of psychic content which give it direction in its self-creation. This is a process that goes on continuously. As Kierkegaard well said, the self is only that which it is in the process of becoming. Despite the obvious determinism in human life — especially in the physical aspect of ones self in such simple things as color of eyes, height relative length of life, and so on — there is also, clearly, this element of self-directing, self-forming. Thinking and self-creating are inseparable. When we become aware of all the fantasies in which we see ourselves in the future, pilot ourselves this way or that, this becomes obvious.

Rollo May
True to the meaning of the rebel as one who renounces authority, he seeks primarily not the substitution of one political system for another. He may favor such a political change, but it is not his chief goal. He rebels for the sake of a vision of life and society which he is convinced is critically important for himself and his fellows. … the rebel fights not only for the relief of his fellow men but also for his personal integrity. For him these are but two sides of the same coin.

Rollo May
Civilization begins with a rebellion. Prometheus, one of the Titans, steals fire from the gods on Mount Olympus and brings it as a gift to man, marking the birth of human culture. For this rebellion Zeus sentences him to be chained to Mount Caucasus where vultures consume his liver during the day and at night it grows back only to be again eaten away the next day. This is a tale of the agony of the creative individual, whose nightly rest only resuscitates him so that he can endure his agonies the next day.

Rollo May
A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat.

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

Rollo May
Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom.

Rollo May
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.

Rollo May
Violence arises not out of superfluity of power but out of powerlessness.

Rollo May
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
Insight comes at a moment of transition between work and relaxation.

Rollo May
Courage is the basic virtue for everyone so long as he continues to grow, to move ahead.

Rollo May
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
Freedom does not come automatically; it is achieved. And it is not gained in a single bound; it must be achieved each day.

Rollo May
The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.

Rollo May
I learned that healing and cure are active processes in which I myself needed to participate.

Rollo May
The first thing necessary for a constructive dealing with time is to learn to live in the reality of the present moment. For psychologically speaking, this present moment is all we have.

Rollo May
The mature person becomes able to differentiate feelings into as many nuances, strong and passionate experiences, or delicate and sensitive ones, as in the different passages of music in a symphony. Unfortunately, many of us have feelings limited like notes in a bugle call.

Rollo May
Courage is required not only in a person's occasional crucial decision for his own freedom, but in the little hour-to-hour decisions which place the bricks in the structure of his building of himself into a person who acts with freedom and responsibility.

Rollo May
By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness.

Rollo May
To say a person is a coward has no more meaning than to say he is lazy: It simply tells us that some vital potentiality is unrealized or blocked.

Rollo May
We define religion as the assumption that life has meaning. Religion, or lack of it, is shown not in some intellectual or verbal formulations but in one's total orientation to life. Religion is whatever the individual takes to be his ultimate concern. One's religious attitude is to be found at that point where he has a conviction that there are values in human existence worth living and dying for.

Rollo May
It is an old and ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way; and we grasp more fiercely at research, statistics, and technical aids in sex when we have lost the values and meaning of love.

Rollo May
The practical implication is that one's goal is to live each moment with freedom, honesty and responsibility.

Rollo May
Existential psychotherapy is the movement which, although standing on one side on the scientific analysis owed chiefly to the genius of Freud, also brings back into the picture the understanding of man on the deeper and broader level — man as the being who is human. It is based on the assumption that it is possible to have a science of man which does not fragmentize man and destroy his humanity at the same moment as it studies him. It unites science and ontology.

Rollo May
Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.

Rollo May
It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.

Rollo May
One of the few blessings of living in an age of anxiety is that we are forced to become aware of ourselves.

Rollo May
Anxiety is an even better teacher than reality, for one can temporarily evade reality by avoiding the distasteful situation; but anxiety is a source of education always present because one carries it within.

Rollo May