Rollo May
American existential psychologist, stating 'The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.'
Most quoted
"The human being cannot live in a condition of emptiness for very long; if he is not growing toward something, he is usually dying toward something."
— from Man's Search for Himself, 1953
"The fully developed personality is one who can live in the present, learn from the past, and plan for the future."
— from Man's Search for Himself, 1953
"The first half of life is devoted to forming a healthy ego, the second half is going inward and letting go of it."
— from Book, 1983
All quotes by Rollo May (100)
Man is not what he thinks he is, he is what he does.
The purpose of therapy is to help the patient discover his own will.
Tragedy is the awareness that forces of mortality shape and constrain our lives.
Power is the ability to maintain one's own seeing, thinking, and living in the face of the pressure to conform.
The recovery of the power of will is the key to mental health.
Art is the process of making visible the invisible.
We must be willing to risk ourselves in order to create.
The meaning of life is not discovered, but created.
Anxiety must be met with courage.
Love cures people, both the ones who give it and the ones who receive it.
The daimonic is any natural function which has the power to take over the whole person.
Happiness is the by-product of the search for meaning.
Therapy is not a matter of doing something to the patient, but of helping him to do something for himself.
The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself.
Myth is the native language of the psyche.
Freedom is man's capacity to take a hand in his own development.
The neurotic is nailed to the cross of his fiction.
Sex is a function of the whole human being.
Creativity is the process of encountering the familiar and seeing it afresh.
The essence of life is being, not having.
Contemporaries of Rollo May
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Rollo May (1909–1994).