Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
IRVIN D. YALOMLife is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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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One reason patients are reluctant to work in a therapy group is they fear that things will go too far, that the powerful therapist or the collective group might coerce them to lose control–to say or think or feel things that will be catastrophic.
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Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer
IRVIN D. YALOM -
All these things I’ve written so much about. That’s why I’ve made such a practice really, over and over to hammer home the point of self-revelation and being more of yourself and showing yourself. Every book I write I want to get that in there.
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I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.
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Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
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Only free man are genuinely useful to one another and can form true friendships. And it’s absolutely permissible, by the highest right of Nature, for everyone to employ clear reason to determine how to live in a way that will allow him to flourish.
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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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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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Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.
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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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Reality always creeps in–the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.
IRVIN D. YALOM