I never want to take away something when I don’t have anything better to offer him in a way.
IRVIN D. YALOMMany people are in despair because their dreams didn’t come true, and they despair even more that they did not make them come true.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.
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The therapist can make the group feel safer by allowing each patient to set his or her limits and by emphasizing the patient’s control over every interaction.
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Specialness as a primary mode of death transcendence takes a number of other maladaptive forms.
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Mature love is loving, not being loved.
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Life as a therapist is a life of service in which we daily transcend our personal wishes and turn our gaze toward the needs and growth of the other.
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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.
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I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people.
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Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I’m still learning.
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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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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 the extent that one is responsible for one’s life, one is alone.
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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.
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A free man who lives among the ignorant strives as far as he can to avoid their favors. A free man acts honestly, not deceptively.
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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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Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness.
IRVIN D. YALOM