“What he himself is, whether he is or is not, he does not know so much as this.”
Ipse qui sit, utrum sit an non sit, id quoque nescit.
Gaio Valerio Catullo list of poems by Catullus
XVII, line 22
Carmina
“What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is - whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. Adam must have experienced such a moment.”
Variant: What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is - whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be. Adam must have experienced such a moment.
Source: The Language of Hypothesis, 1964, p. 158
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George Kelly (psychologist)20
American psychologist and therapist 1905–1967Related quotes
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