Existential psychotherapy is the movement which, although standing on one side on the scientific analysis owed chiefly to the genius of Freud, also brings back into the picture the understanding of man on the deeper and broader level — man as the being who is human.
~ Rollo May
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Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
~ Rollo May
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Courage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.
~ Rollo May
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Art is a substitute for violence.
~ Rollo May
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People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.
~ Rollo May
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Human freedom involves our capacity to pause, to choose the one response toward which we wish to throw our weight.
~ Rollo May
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The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it’s conformity.
~ Rollo May
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Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings.
~ Rollo May
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It requires greater courage to preserve inner freedom, to move on in one’s inward journey into new realms, than to stand defiantly for outer freedom.
~ Rollo May
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Freud describes the neurotic personality of the late nineteenth century as one suffering from fragmentation – that is, from repression of instinctual drives, blocking off of awareness, loss of autonomy, weakness and passivity of the ego, together with the various neurotic symptoms which result from this fragmentation.
~ Rollo May
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