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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

Irvin D. Yalom

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

Come Despair Dream Even Many More People True
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Another Crave Dream Love More People Possess
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. YALOM

Brook Comfort Obvious Other Put Ripple Sense Source Stone Think
Psychotherapy is a cyclical process from isolation into relationship. It is cyclical because the patient, in terror of existential isolation, relates deeply and meaningfully to the therapist and then, strengthened by this encounter, is led back again to a confrontation with existential isolation.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Critical Isolation Process Psychotherapy Relationship Terror Therapist
Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choose Every Must Person Stand Truth
Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alway Death Does Door However Inner Itch Scratch Some Time
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Credo Import Therapeutic Life Living Perhaps Single Unexamined Worth
If people in their 20s had more death awareness, would that in fact temper their ambition or drive?
IRVIN D. YALOM

Ambition Awareness Death Drive Fact More People Temper Twenty
… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Better Give Hope Later Past Sooner
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. YALOM

Aware Death East Every Face Moment Much Not Only Stand Stare Sun Terror Try
Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Absorbed Being Distinction Heidegger Make Thing Way World
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Dignity Else Emerence Everything Government Highest More Protection Religion Revelation
The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Creative Discipline Member Orthodoxy Outgrow Ultimate
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Choice Construct Man Out Spirit
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Couch Experience Like Long Need Personal Side Therapist
You will search the world over and not find a nonsuperstitious community. As long as there is ignorance, there will be adherence to superstition. Dispelling ignorance is the only solution. That is why I teach.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Community Nonsuperstious Over Search World

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

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