As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.
IRVIN D. YALOMLiving safely is dangerous.
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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We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer.
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Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other.
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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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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.
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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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Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don’t leave any unlived life behind.
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Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts.
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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life.
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The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
IRVIN D. YALOM