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. YALOMDeath, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.
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Living safely is dangerous.
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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 -
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
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To the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
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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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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 -
In a study we did of bereavement, we found that rather impressive numbers of widows and widowers had not simply gone back to their pre-loss functioning, but grown.
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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
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Death loses its terror if one dies when one has consummated one’s life!
IRVIN D. YALOM -
When people don’t have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
IRVIN D. YALOM -
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 -
My hunch is yes. It would certainly do something for those who are most ruthless, who tend to make others most miserable.
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Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual.
IRVIN D. YALOM