Rollo May Quotes

By the time you are 30 you are still trying to make your 15-year-old self happy but you are a different person. You need to be brave and let go of that.

For the longest, I was slightly naive when it came to the real world. There were a lot of fears I was afraid to conquer that were just holding me back from standing up for myself or taking chances.

The longer we live the more we must endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave heart must treat society asa child, and never allow it to dictate.

Courage is the capacity to meet the anxiety which arises as one achieves freedom. It is the willingness to differentiate, to move from the protecting realms of parental dependence to new levels of freedom and integration.

Independence was something I really wanted from a young age and I think it really helped me make sense of myself, more so than perhaps say going to university would have done.

My parents emphasized experiential learning - in my family, being adventurous was a sign of maturity.

The decision to go to Milan, as everyone knows, made me mature as a man. It was a big chance and perhaps too big for the man I was at the time.

As you grow older, you want to learn, you want to change, you want to evolve and you don't want to live in fear. Fear is the mind killer.

I used to get butterflies when I'd see big dudes. I don't get butterflies no more.

It definitely toughens you up. It makes you mature from a young age, living away from home.

Doing a scene by yourself is scarier - you know you don't have other people to fall back on.

There's a shift and a change in how we've matured to becoming adults. 'Elevator Girl' represents our maturity.

I am growing up, but I still need help along the way.

Coming to the Waratahs was the first time I felt I gained some independence. I was telling my parents I had to go out on my own, and learn and grow, and if I made mistakes, then so be it.

I have a lot of growing up to do. But I think, 'Hell, is it too late?'

Life calls us forth to independence, and anyone who does not heed this call because of childish laziness or timidity is threatened with neurosis. And once this has broken out, it becomes an increasingly valid reason for running away from life.

It is the individual's task to differentiate himself from all the others and stand on his own feet. All collective identities . . . interfere with the fulfillment of this task. Such collective identities are crutches for the lame, shields for the timid, beds for the lazy, nurseries for the irresponsible. . . .

I'm interested in the ongoing war between the individual and community. That inner dissent against whatever group is surrounding you. No one wants to cede their selfhood to a group, right? And yet no one can exactly live outside the group, either. Even the most obstinate survivalist probably lives in some telepathic communion with all the other obstinate survivalists out there in the woods.

NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

Whoever regards human beings as a herd and flees them as swiftly as he can will no doubt be overtaken by them and impaled on theirhorns.

Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?

These past years have been really transitional for me in every aspect - personally, emotionally and professionally. I was excited and nervous and anxious because I literally had nothing to fall back on. This is my own thing, it's all me. I spent a year working on the record and really wanted to spend time on what it was going to represent and how it was going to represent me in this time in my life.

I'm the one I need to work with.

People need to learn how to work, learn how to support themselves. I think it's just fine to be eccentric.

Once you move away from home, it's never quite the same again. You expect everything to be just as you left it, and it never is. It's almost the first step into adulthood, realising you've got to make your own way.