Rollo May
Rollo May
Rollo Reece Maywas an American existential psychologist and author of the influential book Love and Will. He is often associated with humanistic psychology, existentialist philosophy and, alongside Viktor Frankl, was a major proponent of existential psychotherapy. The philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich was a close friend who had a significant influence on his work...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 April 1909
CountryUnited States of America
attitude character opportunity
Suffering is nature's way of indicating a mistaken attitude or way of behavior, and to the nonegocentric person every moment of suffering is the opportunity for growth. People should rejoice in suffering, strange as it sounds, for this is a sign of the availability of energy to transform their characters.
religious attitude intellectual
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.
attitude acceptance men
That because of this interplay of conscious and unconscious factors in guilt and the impossibility of legalistic blame, we are forced into an attitude of acceptance of the universal human situation and a recognition of the participation of every one of us in man's inhumanity to man.
among courage foundation gives love personal reality value values virtue virtues
Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity.It is the foundation that underlies and gives reality to all other virtues and personalvalues.
love-is way amazing-things
The amazing thing about love is that it is the best way to get to know ourselves.
inspirational quiet-people creativity
In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
capacity conscious dreams ideas images imagination mind phenomena psychic sort visions
Imagination is the outreaching of mind . . . . the bombardment of the conscious mind with ideas, impulses, images and every sort of psychic phenomena welling up from the preconscious. It is the capacity to "dream dreams and see visions . . . .
unique men animal
Man is the "ethical animal" ethical in potentiality even if, unfortunately, not in actuality. His capacity for ethical judgment like freedom, reason and the other unique characteristics of the human being is based upon his consciousness of himself.
worry boredom anxiety
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.
depressing ifs
If we admit our depression openly and freely, those around us get from it an experience of freedom rather than the depression itself.
phrases movement starting
Neither Kierkegaard nor Nietzsche had the slightest interest in starting a movement – or a new system, a thought which would indeed have offended them. Both proclaimed, in Nietzsche's phrase, Follow not me, but you!
creativity love-is said
What Kierkegaard said about love is also true of creativity: every person must start at the beginning.
artist creative anxiety
Dogmatism of all kinds--scientific, economic, moral, as well as political--are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyer of our nicely ordered systems. (p. 76)
self wish weight
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)