7 Rollo May Quotes on Humanity

Rollo May quotes on humanity

6. Man is the 'ethical animal' -ethical in potentiality even if, unfortunately, not in actuality. His capacity for ethical judgment-like freedom, reason and the other unique characteristics of the human being-is based upon his consciousness of himself.

16. Lacking positive myths to guide him, many a sensitive contemporary man finds only the model of the machine beckoning him from every side to make himself over into its image.

17. ...when people feel their insignificance as individual persons, they also suffer an undermining of their sense of human responsibility.

38. The acorn becomes an oak by means of automatic growth; no commitment is necessary. The kitten similarly becomes a cat on the basis of instinct. Nature and being are identical in creatures like them. But a man or woman becomes fully human only by his or her choices and his or her commitment to them. People attain worth and dignity by the multitude of decisions they make from day by day. These decisions require courage.

71. Care is a state in which something does matter; it is the source of human tenderness.

72. One does not become fully human painlessly.

77. It is highly significant, and indeed almost a rule, that moral courage has its source in identification through one's own sensitivity with the suffering of one's fellow human beings.