Finding the center of strenghth within ourselves is in the long run best contribution we can do to our fellow man Rollo May More Quotes by Rollo May More Quotes From Rollo May 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 creativity joy believe A person can meet anxiety to the extent that his values are stronger than the threat. Rollo May threat anxiety stronger Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom. Rollo May creativity self mean Insight comes at a moment of transition between work and relaxation. Rollo May transition moments relaxation Artists do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. Rollo May artist running wrestling Creative people... are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of 'divine madness,' to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks. Rollo May anxiety creative people 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 speaks-out powerful order There is no meaningful yes unless the individual could also have said no. Rollo May individual said meaningful Human freedom involves our capacity to pause between the stimulus and response and, in that pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. The capacity to create ourselves, based upon this freedom, is inseparable from consciousness or self-awareness. (p. 100) Rollo May weight self wish 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) Rollo May significant moral suffering Forge in the smithy of your soul. Rollo May your-soul soul The ancient Greeks, as Plato reports, believed that we discover truth through "reminiscence," that is by "remembering," by intuitively searching into our own experience. Rollo May greek plato remember When one read's Kierkegaard's profound analyses of anxiety and despair or Nietzsche's amazingly acute insights into the dynamics of resentment and the guilt and hostility which accompany repressed emotional powers, one might pinch oneself to realize that one is reading works written in the last century and not some new contemporary psychological analysis. Rollo May emotional reading profound Mark Tobey fills his canvases with elliptical, calligraphic lines, beautiful whirls that seem at first glance to be completely abstract and to come from nowhere at all except his own subjective musing. But I shall never forget how struck I was, on visiting Tobey's studio one day, to see strewn around books on astronomy and photographs of the Milky Way. I knew then that Tobey experiences the movement of the stars and solar constellations as the external pole of his encounter. Rollo May stars beautiful book Joy is the effect which comes when we use our powers. Rollo May effects use joy Reason works better when emotions are present; the person sees sharper and more accurately when his emotions are engaged. Rollo May emotion persons reason Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight. Rollo May weight capacity wish The schizoid man is the natural product of the technological man. It is one way to live and is increasingly utilized and it may explode into violence. Rollo May way-to-live violence men 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 society self-esteem trying I became a psychotherapist because that's where people will unburden themselves, where they will show what is in their hearts. Rollo May shows heart people
