It’s not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It’s like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death’s terror.
IRVIN D. YALOMPandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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The drive for power is not uncommonly motivated by this dynamic. One’s own fear and sense of limitation is avoided by enlarging oneself and one’s sphere of control.
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My hunch is yes. It would certainly do something for those who are most ruthless, who tend to make others most miserable.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
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Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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This was due to a kind of increased existential awareness that resulted from this confrontation with the death of another. And I think it brought them in touch with their own death, so they began to experience a kind of preciousness to life that comes with an experience of its transiency.
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We take pleasure not only in the growth of our patient but also in the ripple effect—the salutary influence our patients have upon those whom they touch in life.
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If people in their 20s had more death awareness, would that in fact temper their ambition or drive?
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Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
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Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you’ll always find despair.
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There are borderlines and there are borderlines. Labels do violence to people. You can’t treat the label; you have to treat the person behind the label. (17)
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Love is not just a passion spark between two people; there is infinite difference between falling in love and standing in love.
IRVIN D. YALOM






