47 Quotes by Sheldon B. Kopp

He prefers the security of known misery to the misery of unfamiliar insecurity.

The most insidious of the premature responsibilities that may be foisted onto some children is the expectation that the child is somehow supposed to take care of his parents, rather than the other way around. Parents who were themselves raised with too little attention given to their own early feelings, if they have not worked out the resulting emotional problems in subsequent years, often look forward to having children of their own so that the children will make them happy. (81)

So it is that God tugs at a pilgrim's sleeve telling him to remember that he is only human. He must be his own man, remain in exile, and belong to himself. He must pay attention to his own feelings and to the meaning of what he does, if he is to be for himself, and yet for others as well.

We must always see our own feelings of uneasiness as being our chance for 'making the growth choice' rather than the fear choice.

What is to be learnt [about life] is too elusively simple to be grasped without struggle, surrender, and experiencing of how it is.

So it is that there is nothing to be taught, but yet there is something to be learned.

If I reveal myself without worrying about how others will respond, then some will care, though others may not. But who can love me, if no one knows me? I must risk it, or live alone.

Sometimes life seems like a poorly designed cage within which man has been sentenced to be free.

Crises marked by anxiety, doubt, and despair have always been those periods of personal unrest that occur at the times when a man is sufficiently unsettled to have an opportunity for personal growth. We must always see our own feelings of uneasiness as being our chance for "making the growth choice rather than the fear choice.