{"author":"Rollo May","author_id":"Rollo+May","total_quotes":95,"quotes":[{"text":"It is important to note that the acquisition of wealth, as the accepted standard of succes, does not refer to increasing material goods for sustenance purposes, or even for the purpose of increasing enjoyment. It refers rather to wealth as a sign of individual power, a proof of achievement and self-worth.Modern economic individualism, though based on belief in the free individual, has resulted in the phenomenon that increasingly large numbers of people have to work on the property (capital) of a few powerful owners. It is not surprising that such a situation should lead to widespread insecurity, for not only is the individual faced with a criterion of succes over which he has only partial control but also his opportunities for a job are in considerable measure out of his control.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["anxiety","capitalism","culture","industrialism","work"],"id":3824,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"A myth is a way of making sense in a senseless world. Myths are narrative patterns that give significance to our existence.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["existentialism","myths"],"id":11090,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"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 problems with perspective.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["lighten"],"id":18112,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"Depression is the inability to construct a future.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["psychiatry"],"id":28231,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"But there also seems to be in our culture a curious cautiousness—“You’ll get these abundant gratifications only if you don’t feel too much, don’t let on you want too much.” The result is that, instead of conquering the world like Horatio Alger, we should wait passively until the genie of technology—which we don’t push or influence, only await—brings us our appointed gratifications. All of this is a part of the rewards which go with belief in the vast myth of the machine in the twentieth century.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["psychology"],"id":35233,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"It is very difficult to appreciate from the outside what a person in severe anxiety is experiencing. Brown rightly remarked about his friends 'imploring a drowning man [me] to swim when they don't know that under the water his hands and feet are tied.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["anxiety"],"id":40066,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["assembly-line","creativity","poets"],"id":40263,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"Just as the poet is a menace to conformity, he is also a constant threat to political dictators. He is always on the verge of blowing up the assembly line of political power.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["creative-person","dictators","poet","political-power"],"id":50934,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"Courage is the basic virtue for everyone so long as he continues to grow  to move ahead.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["courage"],"id":54665,"author_id":"Rollo+May"},{"text":"Courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.","author":"Rollo May","tags":["despair","ahead","absence "],"id":63262,"author_id":"Rollo+May"}],"pagination":{"page":1,"page_size":10,"total":95,"pages":10,"next":"?page=2\u0026page_size=10"}}