Rollo Reece May (1909–94) was an American existential psychologist. He was the author of the influential book Love and Will, which was published in 1969. He is often associated with both humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy. He along with Viktor Frankl was a major proponent of “existential psychotherapy,” which seeks to analyze the structure of human existence with the aim of understanding the reality underlying all situations of humans in crises (). May was a close friend of the philosopher and theologian Paul Tillich, who also had a significant influence on his work. His works include The Meaning of Anxiety, Love and Will, and The Courage to Create, the latter title honoring Tillich’s The Courage to Be.
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Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.
—Rollo May
Topics: Compassion, Kindness
Depression is the inability to construct a future.
—Rollo May
Topics: One liners, Despair, Depression
The most effective way to ensure the value of the future is to confront the present courageously and constructively.
—Rollo May
Freedom is man’s capacity to take a hand in his own development. It is our capacity to mold ourselves.
—Rollo May
Topics: Freedom
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.
—Rollo May
Topics: One liners, Hatred
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
Topics: Freedom
The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.
—Rollo May
Topics: Courage
The hallmark of courage in our age of conformity is the capacity to stand on one’s convictions not obstinately or defiantly (these are gestures of defensiveness, not courage) nor as a gesture of retaliation, but simply because these are what one believes.
—Rollo May
Topics: Courage
Tenderness emerges from the fact that the two persons, longing, as all individuals do, to overcome the separateness and isolation to which we are all heir because we are individuals, can participate in a relationship that, for the moment, is not of two isolated selves but a union.
—Rollo May
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