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Rollo May Quotes

Powerful Rollo May for Daily Growth

About Rollo May

Rollo Reese May (1909-1994) was an influential American existential psychologist and author whose work bridged philosophy, psychology, and theology. Born in Indiana on August 20, 1909, May grew up in a Midwestern family with strong religious values. Despite this traditional background, his intellectual curiosity led him to study philosophy at Earlham College before earning his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Columbia University in 1936. May's work was significantly influenced by the European existentialist movement, particularly the ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger. In the 1950s, he joined the faculty at Pacific Graduate School of Psychology in California, where he helped establish one of the first humanistic psychology programs. May's major works include "Man's Search for Himself" (1953), "The Courage to Create" (1957), and "Love and Will" (1969). His writing focused on the individual's quest for self-understanding, freedom, and creativity in an often alienating world. These works also emphasized the importance of relationships, particularly therapeutic relationships, in fostering personal growth and self-actualization. May was a strong advocate for humanistic psychology, which emphasizes the unique potentialities, capacities, and richness of the human spirit. His work has been instrumental in shaping contemporary approaches to psychotherapy that prioritize empathy, authenticity, and personal responsibility. Rollo May passed away on October 29, 1994, but his legacy continues to influence fields as diverse as psychology, philosophy, education, and theology. His work remains relevant today, offering insights into the human condition that resonate deeply with readers seeking a deeper understanding of themselves and their place in the world.

Interpretations of Popular Quotes

"The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change."

This quote by Rollo May suggests that self-acceptance serves as a foundation for personal growth. When one acknowledges and accepts their own imperfections, they create a stable platform from which to explore change and improvement. Self-acceptance frees an individual from the need to conform to unrealistic expectations, allowing them to embrace their authentic selves and pursue genuine self-improvement.

"Democracy is not a spectator sport."

This quote emphasizes that democracy requires active participation from its citizens. It suggests that merely observing or passively supporting democracy isn't enough; instead, every individual should take an active role in shaping the direction of their society through voting, civic engagement, and constructive dialogue.

"The more we open our heart to others, the more we open our hearts to ourselves."

This quote by Rollo May emphasizes the interconnectedness between self-understanding and empathy towards others. By opening our hearts to others, we allow them into our emotional world, fostering deeper connections and understanding. In doing so, we not only learn about those around us but also gain insights into our own feelings, thoughts, and values. This process of sharing and connecting helps us grow and develop a more profound sense of self-awareness and empathy, leading to personal growth and emotional wellbeing.

"We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us."

This quote by Rollo May encourages embracing change and letting go of preconceived notions about one's life, in order to fully experience new opportunities or directions that may lead to a more authentic and fulfilling life. It suggests that sometimes we must break free from the limitations of our carefully planned lives to discover the unexpected and potentially transformative experiences waiting for us.

"Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life."

Rollo May's quote emphasizes that humans are driven primarily by the desire to find purpose or meaning in their lives. This pursuit of meaning is not merely a philosophical quest, but an essential force that fuels our actions, decisions, and experiences. It suggests that humans strive to understand why they exist, what their role is within the universe, and how they can make a significant impact on the world around them. Essentially, this quote underscores the importance of personal growth, self-discovery, and finding one's place in life as central aspects of human existence.

The relationship between commitment and doubt is by no means an antagonistic one. Commitment is healthiest when it's not without doubt but in spite of doubt.

- Rollo May

Antagonistic, Means, Spite

Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

- Rollo May

Courage, Rather, Move, Spite

The emergence of the Atomic Age brought the previously inchoate and 'free-floating' anxiety of many people into sharp focus.

- Rollo May

Focus, Brought, Many, Emergence

If we are to achieve freedom, we must do so with a daring and a profundity that refuse to flinch at engaging our destiny.

- Rollo May

Destiny, Achieve, Profundity, Engaging

Loneliness is such an omnipotent and painful threat to many persons that they have little conception of the positive values of solitude and even, at times, are frightened at the prospect of being alone.

- Rollo May

Positive, Loneliness, Values, Threat

A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.

- Rollo May

Give, Making, Senseless, Significance

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. It is often easier to play the martyr, as it is to be rash in battle.

- Rollo May

Courage, Play, New, Inward

Our particular problem in America at this point in history is the widespread loss of the sense of individual significance, a loss which is sensed inwardly as impotence.

- Rollo May

Sense, Individual, Which, Significance

The striking thing about love and will in our day is that, whereas in the past they were always held up to us as the answer to life's predicaments, they have now themselves become the problem.

- Rollo May

Love, Always, In The Past, Striking

Social acceptance, 'being liked,' has so much power because it holds the feelings of loneliness at bay.

- Rollo May

Loneliness, Social, Being, Bay

The cooperative, loving side of existence goes hand in hand with coping and power, but neither the one nor the other can be neglected if life is to be gratifying.

- Rollo May

Goes, Other, Side, Cooperative

Political freedom is to be cherished indeed. But there is no political freedom that is not indissolubly bound to the inner personal freedom of the individuals who make up that nation: no liberty of a nation of conformists, no free nation made up of robots.

- Rollo May

Nation, Made, Cherished, Personal Freedom

It may sound surprising when I say, on the basis of my own clinical practice as well as that of my psychological and psychiatric colleagues, that the chief problem of people in the middle decade of the twentieth century is emptiness.

- Rollo May

Practice, Sound, Decade, Emptiness

While one might laugh at the meaningless boredom of people a decade or two ago, the emptiness has for many now moved from the state of boredom to a state of futility and despair, which holds promise of dangers.

- Rollo May

Boredom, Decade, Which, Emptiness

Psychoanalysis - and any good therapy - is a method of increasing one's awareness of destiny in order to increase one's experience of freedom.

- Rollo May

Destiny, Therapy, Method, Psychoanalysis

Every being has the need not only to be but to affirm his own being. This is especially significant for the human organism, for it is gifted with, or condemned to, self-consciousness.

- Rollo May

Own, Need, Organism, Self-Consciousness

We are anxious because we do not know what roles to pursue, what principles for action to believe in. Our individual anxiety, somewhat like that of the nation, is a basic confusion and bewilderment about where we are going.

- Rollo May

Nation, Individual, Like, Confusion

In the utopian aim of removing all power and aggression from human behavior, we run the risk of removing self-assertion, self-affirmation, and even the power to be.

- Rollo May

Run, Aim, Aggression, Utopian

Myths give us our sense of personal identity, answering the question, 'Who am I?'

- Rollo May

Question, Give, Sense, Who Am I

Freedom is the possibility of development, of enhancement of one's life - or the possibility of withdrawing, shutting oneself up, denying and stultifying one's growth.

- Rollo May

Development, Withdrawing, Enhancement

The human dilemma is that which arises out of a man's capacity to experience himself as both subject and object at the same time.

- Rollo May

Which, Subject, Same Time, Dilemma

The compelling drive to get at the truth is what improves us all as psychologists and is part and parcel of intellectual integrity. But I do urge that we not let the drive for honesty put blinders on us and cut off our range of vision so that we miss the very thing we set out the understand - namely, the living human being.

- Rollo May

Very, Cut, Compelling, Blinders

Problems are the outward signs of unused inner possibilities.

- Rollo May

Possibilities, Signs, Unused, Outward

I make no apologies in admitting that I take very seriously the dehumanizing dangers in our tendency in modern science to make man over into the image of the machine, into the image of the techniques by which we study him.

- Rollo May

Over, Very, Which, Apology

Many modern people have gone so far in their dependence on others for their feeling of reality that they are afraid that without it they would lose the sense of their own existence.

- Rollo May

Lose, Existence, Own, Dependence

One does not become fully human painlessly.

- Rollo May

Human, Become, Does, Fully

The problems of a period are the existential crises of what can be but hasn't yet been resolved; and regardless of how seriously we take that word 'resolved,' if there were not some new possibility, there would be no crisis - there would be only despair.

- Rollo May

New, Some, Crises, Possibility

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.

- Rollo May

Courage, Society, Cowardice, Conformity

It is an obvious fact that when an age is torn loose from its moorings and everyone is to some degree thrown on his own, most people can take steps to find and realize themselves.

- Rollo May

Fact, Some, Torn, Loose

I believe that the therapist's function should be to help people become free to be aware of and to experience their possibilities.

- Rollo May

Believe, Possibilities, I Believe

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