I think we ripple on into others, just like a stone puts its ripples into a brook. That, for me, too, is a source of comfort. It kind of, in a sense, negates the sense of total oblivion.
IRVIN D. YALOMSome sort of greater awareness of their own finiteness and what their time on earth really is, and what they really want to do with their lives, could help improve them.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
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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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None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future.
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The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
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Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
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Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
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There was a time in our lives when we were so close that nothing seemed to obstruct our friendship and brotherhood, and only a small footbridge separated us.
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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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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
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When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
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Death cures psychoneurosis. In a sense all these neurotic concerns–fear of rejection, interpersonal concerns–seem to melt away, and people get another perspective on their lives. The important things are really important, and the trivia of life is trivialized.
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Some have expressed the very opposite feeling–the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
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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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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.
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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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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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If I’m among men who don’t agree at all with my nature, I will hardly be able to accommodate myself to them without greatly changing myself.
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Therapists need to have a long experience in personal therapy to see what it’s like to be on the other side of the couch and see what they find helpful or not helpful. And if possible, get into therapy at different stages of their life with different kinds of therapists just to sample a bit.
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One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
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The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
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When we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves
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Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
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Since then mountains and torrential rivers and whatever separates and alienates have been cast between us, and even if we wanted to get together, we couldn’t. But when you now think of that little footbridge, words fail you and you sob and marvel.
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He had learned long ago that, in general, the easier it was for anxious patients to reach him, the less likely they were to call. (107)
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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
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Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
IRVIN D. YALOM