A sense of life meaning ensues but cannot be deliberately pursued: life meaning is always a derivative phenomenon that materializes when we have transcended ourselves.
IRVIN D. YALOMOnly 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.
More Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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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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The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.
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You know, I think everybody I’ve seen has come from some other therapy, and almost invariably it’s very much the same thing: the therapist is too disinterested, a little too aloof, a little too inactive. They’re not really interested in the person, he doesn’t relate to the person.
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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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Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world.
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I don’t let any personal views about religion cause me to want to take away something that’s offering the patient comfort.
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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.
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The death anxiety of many people is fueled … by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential.
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It is wrong to bear children out of need, wrong to use a child to alleviate loneliness, wrong to provide purpose in life by reproducing another copy of oneself. It is wrong also to seek immortality by spewing one’s germ into the future as though sperm contains your consciousness!
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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
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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.
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
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Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.
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… sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
IRVIN D. YALOM