Rollo May Creativity Quotes & Sayings

Now, I believe in life, and I believe in the joy of human existence, but these things cannot be experienced except as we also face the despair, also face the anxiety that every human being has to face if he lives with any creativity at all. — Rollo May

Joy is the zest that you get out of using your talents, your understanding, the totality of your being, for great aims ... That's the kind of feeling that goes with creativity. That's why I say the courage to create. Creation does not come out of simply what you're born with. That must be united with your courage, both of which cause anxiety, but also great joy. — Rollo May

The concept of encounter also enables us to make clearer the important distinction between talent and creativity. Talent may well have its neurological correlates and can be studied as "given" to a person. A man or woman may have talent whether he or she uses it or not; talent can probably be measured in the person as such. But creativity can be seen only in the act. If we were purists, we would not speak of a "creative person," but only of a creative act. — Rollo May

Escapist creativity is that which lacks encounter. — Rollo May

Every act of genuine creativity means achieving a higher level of self-awareness and personal freedom. — Rollo May

It is necessary for the birthing process to begin to move in its own organic time. It is necessary that the artist have this sense of timing, that he or she respect ... periods of receptivity as part of the mystery of creativity and creation. — Rollo May

In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone. — Rollo May

What the artist or creative scientist feels is not anxiety or fear; it is joy. I use the word in contrast to happiness or pleasure. The artist, at the moment of creating, does not experience gratification or satisfaction ... Rather, it is joy, joy defined as the emotion that goes with heightened consciousness, the mood that accompanies the experience of actualizing one's own potentialities. — Rollo May

Creativity is the encounter of the intensively conscious human being with his world. — Rollo May

Something is born, comes into being, something which did not exist before - which is as good a definition of creativity as we can get. — Rollo May

By the creative act, however, we are able to reach beyond our own death. This is why creativity is so important and why we need to confront the problem of the relationship between creativity and death. — Rollo May

Everyone belongs to a society, whether he wishes it or not, whether he chooses it or not, whether he contributes constructively to its development or does the reverse. Community, on the contrary, implies one's relating one's self to others affirmatively and responsibly. Community in the economic sense implies an emphasis on the social values and functions of work. Community in the psychological sense involves the individual's relating himself to others in love as well as creativity. — Rollo May

What Kierkegaard said about love is also true of creativity: every person must start at the beginning. — Rollo May

When you are completely absorbed or caught up in something, you become oblivious to things around you, or to the passage of time. It is this absorption in what you are doing that frees your unconscious and releases your creative imagination. — Rollo May

Creativity is the result of a struggle between vitality and form. As anyone who has tried to write a sonnet or scan poetry, is aware, the form ideally do not take away from the creativity but may add to it. — Rollo May

We express our being by creating. Creativity is a necessary sequel to being. — Rollo May

What anxiety means is it's as though the world is knocking at your door, and you need to create, you need to make something, you need to do something. I think anxiety, for people who have found their own heart and their own souls, for them it is a stimulus toward creativity, toward courage. It's what makes us human beings. — Rollo May

Creativity occurs as an act of encounter, and is to be understood with this encounter at the center. — Rollo May

The creative process must be explored ... as the expression of the normal people in the act of actualizing themselves. — Rollo May

Creativity is neither the product of neurosis nor simple talent, but an intense courageous encounter with the Gods. — Rollo May

Creativity arises out of the tension between spontaneity and limitations, the latter (like the river banks) forcing the spontaneity into the various forms which are essential to the work of art or poem. — Rollo May

The battle with the gods thus hinges on our own mortality! Creativity is a yearning for immortality. — Rollo May

Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being. Creativity requires passion and commitment. It brings to our awareness what was previously hidden and points to new life. The experience is one of heightened consciousness: ecstasy. — Rollo May

Creativity is not merely the innocent spontaneity of our youth and childhood; it must also be married to the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one's death. — Rollo May

All people are struggling to be creative in some way, and the artist is the one who has succeeded in this task of life. — Rollo May

By the creative act, we are able to reach beyond our own death. — Rollo May

Poets may be delightful creatures in the meadow or the garret, but they are menaces on the assembly line. — Rollo May

These poets and other creative persons are the ones who express being itself, he held. As I would put it, these are the ones who enlarge human consciousness. Their creativity is the most basic manifestation of a man or woman fulfilling his or her own being in the world. — Rollo May

By whatever name one calls it, genuine creativity is characterized by an intensity of awareness, a heightened consciousness. — Rollo May

We cannot will to have insights. We cannot will to have creativity, but we can will to give ourselves to the creative experience with intensity of dedication and commitment. — Rollo May