351 Quotes by Rollo May

When people feel threatened and anxious they become more rigid, and when in doubt they tend to become dogmatic; and then they lose their own vitality. They use the remnants of traditional values to build a protective encasement and then shrink behind it; or they make an outright panicky retreat into the past. But.

Something is born, comes into being, something which did not exist before – which is as good a definition of creativity as we can get.

Receptivity requires a nimbleness, a fine-honed sensitivity in order to let one’s self be the vehicle of whatever vision may emerge.

Many people suffer from the fear of finding oneself alone, and so they don’t find themselves at all.

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.

Finding the center of strenghth within ourselves is in the long run best contribution we can do to our fellow man.

Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one’s death.

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

All our feelings, like the artist’s paints and brush, are ways of communicating and sharing something meaningful from us to the world.