Rollo May Creativity Quotations

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Creativity is the process of bringing something new into being.

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

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.

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

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

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.

... 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.

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.

Creativity is a yearning for immortality

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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