Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The transition from boredom to despair reflects a deeper existential crisis in modern society.
Rollo May's quote highlights a significant shift in the human experience, where the feelings of emptiness have evolved from mere boredom to a more severe state of futility and despair. This change suggests that the challenges of modern life may lead to a sense of existential crisis, posing potential dangers for individuals and society as a whole.
Themes
BoredomDespairFutilityExistentialismModernityDanger
In practice
Example use cases
In a keynote speech addressing mental health, this quote can illustrate the importance of recognizing growing despair in today's society.
More from Rollo May
All quotes →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
Rollo MayRead
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.
Rollo MayRead
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.
Rollo MayRead
Beauty is the experience that gives us a sense of joy and a sense of peace simultaneously.
Rollo MayRead
The poet, like the lover, is a menace on the assembly line.
Rollo MayRead
Similar quotes
All the forms of civil polity have been tried by mankind, except one, and that seems to have been reserved in Providence to be realized in America.
Ezra StilesRead
The principles which men profess on any controverted subject are usually a very incomplete exponent of the opinions they really hold.
John Stuart MillRead
And never have I felt so deeply at one and the same time so detached from myself and so present in the world.
Albert CamusRead
Yesterday and tomorrow cross and mix on the skyline. The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets, one waits.
Carl SandburgRead
In the early days of the December that my father was to die, my younger brother brought me the news that I was a Jew. I was then a transplanted Englishman in America, married, with one son and, though unconsoled by any religion, a nonbelieving member of two Christian churches. On hearing the tidings, I was pleased to find that I was pleased.
Christopher HitchensRead
The agnostic, the skeptic, is neurotic, but this does not imply a false philosophy; it implies the discovery of facts to which he does not know how to adapt himself. The intellectual who tries to escape from neurosis by escaping from the facts is merely acting on the principle that “where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.
Alan WattsRead