Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
This personal freedom to think and feel and speak authentically and to be conscious of so doing is the quality that distinguishes us as human.
Interpretation
Authentic self-expression is what makes us uniquely human.
Rollo May highlights the essential nature of personal freedom, emphasizing that the ability to think, feel, and express oneself genuinely is a defining characteristic of humanity. He suggests that consciousness in our actions and expression underpins our identity and individuality, making authenticity vital for living a fulfilling life.
In practice
During a motivational speech to inspire people to embrace their authenticity.
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.
There is a great deal of pain in life and perhaps the only pain that can be avoided is the pain that comes from trying to avoid pain.
Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe; a moment that never was before and never will be again.
It is not known precisely where angels dwell whether in the air, the void, or the planets. It has not been God's pleasure that we should be informed of their abode.
You might say, 'Can't we have a more human Christianity, without the cross, without Jesus, without stripping ourselves?' In this way we'd become pastry-shop Christians, like a pretty cake and nice sweet things. Pretty, but not true Christians.
Women, like men, ought to have their youth so glutted with freedom they hate the very idea of freedom.
...if there is a widely shared concept of intentional action... a philosophical analysis of intentional action that is wholly unconstrained by that concept runs the risk of having nothing more than a philosophical fiction as its subject matter.
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