Love is generally confused with dependence; but in point of fact, you can love only in proportion to your capacity for independence.
Rollo MayRead
Freedom always deals with 'the possible'; this gives freedom its great flexibility, its fascination, and its dangers.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Freedom allows for endless possibilities but carries inherent risks.
In this quote, Rollo May emphasizes that true freedom is not just about the absence of constraints but encompasses the potential and choices that come with it. This flexibility opens up a realm of opportunities that can be both alluring and perilous, as the freedom to choose also encompasses the risk of making unwise decisions.
Themes
FreedomPossibilityFlexibilityRiskChoices
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of personal choices in life.
More from Rollo May
All quotes βTo 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
The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that he who seeks his own happiness does not find it; that he who is weak must suffer; that he who demands love will be disappointed; that he who is greedy will not be fed; that he who seeks peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die.
Joyce CaryRead
If God thinks this state of war in the universe a price worth paying for free will...then we may take it it is worth paying.
C. S. LewisRead
You say that you are just a body, but inside of you is something greater than the Universe.
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The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the angels of our nature.
Abraham LincolnRead
A high standard of living cannot remain the exclusive possession of the West - and the sooner we can help other peoples to develop their resources, raise their living standards, and strengthen their national independence, the safer the world will be for us all.
Robert KennedyRead
Cyprian was not issuing a new decree but was keeping to the most solid belief of the Church in order to correct some who thought that infants ought not be baptized before the eighth day after their birth. . . . He agreed with certain of his fellow bishops that a child is able to be duly baptized as soon as he is born.
Saint AugustineRead