I feel strongly, because a man who will himself die one day in the not to distant future and, also, as a psychiatrist who spent decades dealing with death anxiety, that confronting death allows us, not to open some noisome.
IRVIN D. YALOMIf we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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A free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid their favors. A free man acts honestly, not deceptively.
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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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Pandora’s box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
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One thing I feel clear about is that it’s important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven’t really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won’t look back upon my forties with regret.
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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.
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Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.
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The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
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To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
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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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I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
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Indeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program.
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The therapist can make the group feel safer by allowing each patient to set his or her limits and by emphasizing the patient’s control over every interaction.
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A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
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Many people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.
IRVIN D. YALOM