Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
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.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the intrinsic human desire for self-affirmation and the significance of self-consciousness in defining one's existence.
Rollo May's quote explores the fundamental human need to not just exist, but to actively affirm and understand one's own identity. It highlights the unique position of humans, who possess self-consciousness, which compels them to seek validation and meaning in their lives, pushing them to engage in a continuous journey of self-discovery and affirmation.
In practice
In a personal development seminar to emphasize the importance of self-acceptance.
Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
To love means to open ourselves to the negative as well as the positive - to grief, sorrow, and disappointment as well as to joy, fulfillment, and an intensity of consciousness we did not know was possible before
Terrorism and the whole drug scene are vivid examples of the fact that what persons abhor most of all in life is the possibility that they will not matter.
Humor is the healthy way of feeling "distance" between one's self and the problem, a way of standing off and looking at one's problem with perspective.
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
The poet, like the lover, is a menace on the assembly line.
A sign of a culture that has lost its faith - Moral collapse follows upon spiritual collapse.
We have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.
It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive.
To know God better is only to realize how impossible it is that we should ever know him at all. I know not which is more childish to deny him, or define him.
At the center of the Christian faith is the affirmation that there is a God in the universe who is the ground and essence of all reality. A Being of infinite love and boundless power, God is the creator, sustainer, and conserver of values....In contrast to the ethical relativism of [totalitarianism], Christianity sets forth a system of absolute moral values and affirms that God has placed within the very structure of this universe certain moral principles that are fixed and immutable.
To reach me, you must move to me. Your attack offers me an opportunity to intercept you.
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