351 Quotes by Rollo May
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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.
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Self-inflation and conceit are generally the external signs of inner emptiness and self-doubt; a show of pride is one of the most common covers for anxiety.
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Much self-condemnation is a cloak for arrogance. Those who think they overcome pride by condemning themselves could well ponder Spinoza's remark "One who despises himself is the nearest to a proud man.
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Indeed, compulsive and rigid moralism arises in given persons precisely as the result of a lack of sense of being. Rigid moralism is a compensatory mechanism by which the individual persuades himself to take over the external sanctions because he has no fundamental assurance that his own choices have any sanction of their own
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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)
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Courage is not a virtue or value among other personal values like love or fidelity. It is the foundations that underlies and gives reality to all other virtue and personal values. (p. 13)
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Life is not a matter for simple optimism--for there is evil; nor for mere pessimism--for there is good. The possibility for good in the face of evil is what gives life tragic meaning.
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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.
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The weight placed upon the value of competitive succes is so great in our culture and the anxiety occasioned by the possibility of failure to achieve this goal is so prevalent that there is reason for assuming that individual competitive succes is both the dominant goal in our culture and the most pervasive ocassion for anxiety.
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