Clark Moustakas Quotes

A compassionate willingess is required - as is the courage to live before the fact, before the understanding, before any rational support or certainty, to live the moment to its natural peak and conclusion, and to accept with dignity whatever joy, grief, misfortune, or unexpectedness occurs.

We can help a person to be himself by our own willingness to steep ourselves temporarily in his world, in his private feelings and experiences. By our affirmation of the person as he is, we give him support and strength to take the next step in his own growth.

When a person acts without knowledge of what he thinks, feels, needs or wants, he does not yet have the option of choosing to act differently.

A paradox arises: the only way to meaning in freedom is through boundaries. The only way that boundaries make any sense at all is through freedom.

The individual increasingly comes to know who he is through the stand he takes when he expresses his ideas, values, beliefs, and convictions, and through the declaration and ownership of his feelings.

You can at any time decide to alter the course of your life; no one can take that away.

Viewing the child solely as an immature person is a way of escaping comforting him.

The most dramatic conflicts are perhaps, those that take place not between men but between a man and himself - where the arena of conflict is a solitary mind.

Creative life is always based on the values of the self, not on the values of the system.

When we are not honest, we are cut off from a significant resource of ourselves, a vital dimension that is necessary for unity and wholeness.