Top 200 Rollo May Quotes (2024 Update)
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Rollo May Quote: “Purpose in the human being is a much more complex phenomenon than what used to be called will power.”

151. “Purpose in the human being is a much more complex phenomenon than what used to be called will power.”

Rollo May Quote: “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.”

152. “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 Quote: “They pursue meaninglessness until they force it to mean.”

153. “They pursue meaninglessness until they force it to mean.”

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

154. “It is interesting to note how many of the great scientific discoveries begin as myths.”

Rollo May Quote: “Artists do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being.”

155. “Artists do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being.”

Rollo May 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.”

156. “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 Quote: “Whether we are ‘Freudians’ or not, as I am not, we are surely all post-Freudian. He set the tone for vast changes in our culture.”

157. “Whether we are ‘Freudians’ or not, as I am not, we are surely all post-Freudian. He set the tone for vast changes in our culture.”

Rollo May Quote: “This is hard for parents to say genuinely.”

158. “This is hard for parents to say genuinely.”

Rollo May Quote: “There is a curiously sharp sense of joy – or perhaps better expressed, a sense of mild ecstasy – that comes when you find the particular form required by your creation.”

159. “There is a curiously sharp sense of joy – or perhaps better expressed, a sense of mild ecstasy – that comes when you find the particular form required by your creation.”

Rollo May Quote: “By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. This is why creativity is so important and why we need to confront the problem of the relationship between creativity and death.”

160. “By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. This is why creativity is so important and why we need to confront the problem of the relationship between creativity and death.”

Rollo May Quote: “Every authentic artist is engaged in this creating of the conscience of the race, even though he or she may be unaware of the fact.”

161. “Every authentic artist is engaged in this creating of the conscience of the race, even though he or she may be unaware of the fact.”

Rollo May Quote: “These poets and other creative persons are the ones who express being itself, he held. As I would put it, these are the ones who enlarge human consciousness. Their creativity is the most basic manifestation of a man or woman fulfilling his or her own being in the world.”

162. “These poets and other creative persons are the ones who express being itself, he held. As I would put it, these are the ones who enlarge human consciousness. Their creativity is the most basic manifestation of a man or woman fulfilling his or her own being in the world.”

Rollo May Quote: “When Spinoza in the seventeenth century used the word reason, he meant an attitude toward life in which the mind united the emotions with the ethical goals and other aspects of the “whole man.” When people today use the term they almost always imply a splitting of the personality. They ask in one form or another: “Should I follow reason or give way to sensual passions and needs or be faithful to my ethical duty?”

163. “When Spinoza in the seventeenth century used the word reason, he meant an attitude toward life in which the mind united the emotions with the ethical goals and other aspects of the “whole man.” When people today use the term they almost always imply a splitting of the personality. They ask in one form or another: “Should I follow reason or give way to sensual passions and needs or be faithful to my ethical duty?”

Rollo May Quote: “The battle with the gods thus hinges on our own mortality! Creativity is a yearning for immortality.”

164. “The battle with the gods thus hinges on our own mortality! Creativity is a yearning for immortality.”

Rollo May Quote: “The individual human is still the creature who can wonder, who can be enchanted by a sonata, who can place symbols together to make poetry to gladden our heart, who can view a sunrise with a sense of majesty and awe.”

165. “The individual human is still the creature who can wonder, who can be enchanted by a sonata, who can place symbols together to make poetry to gladden our heart, who can view a sunrise with a sense of majesty and awe.”

Rollo May Quote: “The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as “given” to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a “creative person,” but only of a creative act.”

166. “The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as “given” to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a “creative person,” but only of a creative act.”

Rollo May Quote: “Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.”

167. “Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.”

Rollo May Quote: “If, when he first begins tentatively to say “No,” his parents beat him down rather than love and encourage him, he thereafter will say “No” not as a form of true independent strength but as a mere rebellion.”

168. “If, when he first begins tentatively to say “No,” his parents beat him down rather than love and encourage him, he thereafter will say “No” not as a form of true independent strength but as a mere rebellion.”

Rollo May Quote: “Reason works better when emotions are present; the person sees sharper and more accurately when his emotions are engaged.”

169. “Reason works better when emotions are present; the person sees sharper and more accurately when his emotions are engaged.”

Rollo May Quote: “One means of allaying anxiety is frantic activity. The anxiety arising out of the dilemma of powerlessness in the face of suprapersonal economic forces on one hand, but theoretical belief in the efficacy of individual effort on the other, was symptomized partly by excessive activism.”

170. “One means of allaying anxiety is frantic activity. The anxiety arising out of the dilemma of powerlessness in the face of suprapersonal economic forces on one hand, but theoretical belief in the efficacy of individual effort on the other, was symptomized partly by excessive activism.”

Rollo May Quote: “Every authentic artist is engaged in this creating of the conscience of the race, even though he or she may be unaware of the fact. The artist is not a moralist by conscious intention, but is concerned only with hearing and expressing the vision within his or her own being. But out of the symbols the artist sees and creates – as Giotto created the forms for the Renaissance – there is later hewn the ethical structure of the society.”

171. “Every authentic artist is engaged in this creating of the conscience of the race, even though he or she may be unaware of the fact. The artist is not a moralist by conscious intention, but is concerned only with hearing and expressing the vision within his or her own being. But out of the symbols the artist sees and creates – as Giotto created the forms for the Renaissance – there is later hewn the ethical structure of the society.”

Rollo May Quote: “And it is permissible to want to be alone temporarily to “get away from it all.” But if one mentioned at a party that he liked to be alone, not for a rest or an escape, but for its own joys, people would think that something was vaguely wrong with him – that some pariah aura of untouchability or sickness hovered round him. And if a person is alone very much of the time, people tend to think of him as a failure, for it is inconceivable to them that he would choose to be alone.”

172. “And it is permissible to want to be alone temporarily to “get away from it all.” But if one mentioned at a party that he liked to be alone, not for a rest or an escape, but for its own joys, people would think that something was vaguely wrong with him – that some pariah aura of untouchability or sickness hovered round him. And if a person is alone very much of the time, people tend to think of him as a failure, for it is inconceivable to them that he would choose to be alone.”

Rollo May Quote: “A fear is a reaction to a specific danger, to which the individual can make a specific adjustment. But what characterizes anxiety is the feeling of diffuseness and uncertainty and the experience of helplessness toward the threat.”

173. “A fear is a reaction to a specific danger, to which the individual can make a specific adjustment. But what characterizes anxiety is the feeling of diffuseness and uncertainty and the experience of helplessness toward the threat.”

Rollo May Quote: “Hence Kierkegaard and Nietszche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.”

174. “Hence Kierkegaard and Nietszche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.”

Rollo May Quote: “Escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter.”

175. “Escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter.”

Rollo May Quote: “Those we call saints rebelled against an outmoded and inadequate form of God on the basis of their new insights into divinity.”

176. “Those we call saints rebelled against an outmoded and inadequate form of God on the basis of their new insights into divinity.”

Rollo May Quote: “The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity.”

177. “The receptivity of the artist must never be confused with passivity.”

Rollo May Quote: “And did not Spinoza’s refusing to flee from excommunication by his church and community mean the same inner battle of integrity, the same struggle for the power not to be afraid of aloneness, without which the noble Ethics, certainly one of the great works of all time, could not have been written?”

178. “And did not Spinoza’s refusing to flee from excommunication by his church and community mean the same inner battle of integrity, the same struggle for the power not to be afraid of aloneness, without which the noble Ethics, certainly one of the great works of all time, could not have been written?”

Rollo May Quote: “In the problem of anxiety we must, therefore, always ask the question of what vital value is being threatened.”

179. “In the problem of anxiety we must, therefore, always ask the question of what vital value is being threatened.”

Rollo May Quote: “The cultural past is rigidly deterministic to the extent that the individual is unaware of it. An analogy, of course, is found in any psychoanalytic treatment: the patient is rigidly determined by past experiences and previously developed patterns to the extent that he is unaware of these experiences and patterns.”

180. “The cultural past is rigidly deterministic to the extent that the individual is unaware of it. An analogy, of course, is found in any psychoanalytic treatment: the patient is rigidly determined by past experiences and previously developed patterns to the extent that he is unaware of these experiences and patterns.”

Rollo May Quote: “When I use the word rebel for the artist, I do not refer to revolutionary or to such things as taking over the dean’s office; that is a different matter. Artists are generally soft-spoken persons who are concerned with their inner visions and images. But that is precisely what makes them feared by any coercive society. For they are the bearers of the human being’s age-old capacity to be insurgent.”

181. “When I use the word rebel for the artist, I do not refer to revolutionary or to such things as taking over the dean’s office; that is a different matter. Artists are generally soft-spoken persons who are concerned with their inner visions and images. But that is precisely what makes them feared by any coercive society. For they are the bearers of the human being’s age-old capacity to be insurgent.”

Rollo May Quote: “The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.”

182. “The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.”

Rollo May Quote: “The odd belief prevails in our culture that a thing or experience is not real if we cannot make it mathematical, and somehow it must be real if we can reduce it to numbers. But this means making an abstraction out of it – mathematics is the abstract par excellence, which is indeed its glory and the reason for its great usefulness.”

183. “The odd belief prevails in our culture that a thing or experience is not real if we cannot make it mathematical, and somehow it must be real if we can reduce it to numbers. But this means making an abstraction out of it – mathematics is the abstract par excellence, which is indeed its glory and the reason for its great usefulness.”

Rollo May Quote: “It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong.”

184. “It is the seeming contradiction that we must be fully committed, but we must also be aware at the same time that we might possibly be wrong.”

Rollo May Quote: “Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves but a union.”

185. “Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves but a union.”

Rollo May Quote: “But attempts to evade anxiety are not only doomed to failure. In running from anxiety you lose your most precious opportunities for the emergence of yourself, and for your education as s human being.”

186. “But attempts to evade anxiety are not only doomed to failure. In running from anxiety you lose your most precious opportunities for the emergence of yourself, and for your education as s human being.”

Rollo May Quote: “Where there is ‘freedom from’ without corresponding interrelationship, there is the anxiety of the defiant and isolated individual. Where there is dependence without freedom, there is the anxiety of the clinging person who cannot live outside a symbiosis.”

187. “Where there is ‘freedom from’ without corresponding interrelationship, there is the anxiety of the defiant and isolated individual. Where there is dependence without freedom, there is the anxiety of the clinging person who cannot live outside a symbiosis.”

Rollo May Quote: “Bertrand Russell writes that the painful thing “about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

188. “Bertrand Russell writes that the painful thing “about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

Rollo May Quote: “But, as is obvious to any observer, many people are thrown into anxiety by situations which are not objectively threatening either in kind or degree. The person may very often state himself that the occasion of his anxiety is a relatively minor event, that his apprehension is ‘silly,’ and he may be angry with himself for letting such a minor thing bother him; but he still feels it.”

189. “But, as is obvious to any observer, many people are thrown into anxiety by situations which are not objectively threatening either in kind or degree. The person may very often state himself that the occasion of his anxiety is a relatively minor event, that his apprehension is ‘silly,’ and he may be angry with himself for letting such a minor thing bother him; but he still feels it.”

Rollo May Quote: “In the individual who is characterized by independence without corresponding relatedness, there will develop hostility toward those whom he believes to be the occasion of his isolation. In the individual who is symbiotically dependent there will develop hostility toward those whom he regards as instrumental in the suppression of his capacities and freedom.”

190. “In the individual who is characterized by independence without corresponding relatedness, there will develop hostility toward those whom he believes to be the occasion of his isolation. In the individual who is symbiotically dependent there will develop hostility toward those whom he regards as instrumental in the suppression of his capacities and freedom.”

Rollo May Quote: “Suppose the apprehension of beauty is itself a way to truth? Suppose that “elegance” – as the word is used by physicists to describe their discoveries – is a key to ultimate reality?”

191. “Suppose the apprehension of beauty is itself a way to truth? Suppose that “elegance” – as the word is used by physicists to describe their discoveries – is a key to ultimate reality?”

Rollo May Quote: “Intense fatigue or illness may also weaken the control of the cortex. Hence we find tired or sick persons responding to threats with a greater degree of undifferentiated anxiety. In psychoanalytic terms, we would speak of this as regression.”

192. “Intense fatigue or illness may also weaken the control of the cortex. Hence we find tired or sick persons responding to threats with a greater degree of undifferentiated anxiety. In psychoanalytic terms, we would speak of this as regression.”

Rollo May Quote: “A young man came for psychotherapy because, though he was intellectually very competent and seemed superficially to be very successful, his spontaneity was almost completely blocked.”

193. “A young man came for psychotherapy because, though he was intellectually very competent and seemed superficially to be very successful, his spontaneity was almost completely blocked.”

Rollo May Quote: “Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.”

194. “Good art wounds as well as delights. It must, because our defenses against the truth are wound so tightly around us. But as art chips away at our defenses, it also opens us to healing potentialities that transcend intellectual games and ego-preserving strategies.”

Rollo May Quote: “Everyone belongs to a society, whether he wishes it or not, whether he chooses it or not, whether he contributes constructively to its development or does the reverse. Community, on the contrary, implies one’s relating one’s self to others affirmatively and responsibly. Community in the economic sense implies an emphasis on the social values and functions of work. Community in the psychological sense involves the individual’s relating himself to others in love as well as creativity.”

195. “Everyone belongs to a society, whether he wishes it or not, whether he chooses it or not, whether he contributes constructively to its development or does the reverse. Community, on the contrary, implies one’s relating one’s self to others affirmatively and responsibly. Community in the economic sense implies an emphasis on the social values and functions of work. Community in the psychological sense involves the individual’s relating himself to others in love as well as creativity.”

Rollo May Quote: “It takes a strong self – that is, a strong sense of personal identity – to relate fully to nature without being swallowed up.”

196. “It takes a strong self – that is, a strong sense of personal identity – to relate fully to nature without being swallowed up.”

Rollo May Quote: “Eros is the center of the vitality of a culture – its heart and soul.”

197. “Eros is the center of the vitality of a culture – its heart and soul.”

Rollo May Quote: “Countless times a week, furthermore, he receives proof in his consulting work that when men at last accept the fact that they cannot successfully lie to themselves, and at last learn to take themselves seriously, they discover previously unknown and often remarkable recuperative powers within themselves.”

198. “Countless times a week, furthermore, he receives proof in his consulting work that when men at last accept the fact that they cannot successfully lie to themselves, and at last learn to take themselves seriously, they discover previously unknown and often remarkable recuperative powers within themselves.”

Rollo May Quote: “But no values are effective, in a person or a society, except as there exists in the person the prior capacity to do the valuing, that is, the capacity actively to choose and affirm the values by which he lives. This the individual must do, and in this way he will help lay the groundwork for the new constructive society which will eventually come out of this disturbed time, as the Renaissance came out of the disintegration of the Middle Ages.”

199. “But no values are effective, in a person or a society, except as there exists in the person the prior capacity to do the valuing, that is, the capacity actively to choose and affirm the values by which he lives. This the individual must do, and in this way he will help lay the groundwork for the new constructive society which will eventually come out of this disturbed time, as the Renaissance came out of the disintegration of the Middle Ages.”

Rollo May Quote: “The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.”

200. “The ultimate error is the refusal to look evil in the face.”

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