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This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.

Irvin D. Yalom

The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Close Come Door Else Knock One Pain Somewhere
Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
IRVIN D. YALOM

Heal Healer Only Truly Wound
To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Activity Another Concerned Growth Life Love Mena
I must stop him from being one of those who call themselves good because they have no claws.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Being Call Claws Must No Stop Themselves
…the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Anxiety Creator Death Life Money Unlive
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
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. YALOM

Also Day Decade Distant Feel Future Himself Man One Psychiatrist Spent Strongly
Were not teaching our students the importance of relationships with other people: how you work with them, what the relational pathology consists of, how you examine your own conscience, how you examine the inner world, how you examine your dreams.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Important Pathology People Relationship Student Teach Work
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Able Accomplish Agree Among Change Great Hardly Men Myself Nature
Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Decide Life Miserable Spend Think
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Cease Climb Enough Height Loo Reach Tragedy Tragic We
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Alternate Between Footprint Marvel Mountain Now Sob Think Together Torrential
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.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Effect Growth Life Local Patient Pleasure Ripple Salutary Take Touch
And if you do the latter, you’re not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Concern Day Every Example Latter Life Pretty Privacy Security Trivialities Worry
Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Field Finish Medicine Other Psychiatry Really Straight Unlike
Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.
IRVIN D. YALOM

Defense Despite Most Staunch Venerable

This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.

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This is what makes us human. But it comes with a costly price: the wound of mortality. Our existence is forever shadowed by the knowledge that we will grow, blossom, and, inevitably, diminish and die.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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