Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

Quotes about:

Anxiety Awareness Consciousness Death Dreams Growth Terror

The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.

Irvin D. Yalom

May, Helping, Accepted

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If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.

Irvin D. Yalom

Pain, Growth, Want

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To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.

Irvin D. Yalom

Mean, Growth, Love Means

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Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind.

Irvin D. Yalom

Live Your Life, Live Your Life To The Fullest, Behinds

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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. 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

Growth, Wish, Needs

Irvin D. Yalom (2011). “The Gift Of Therapy (Revised And Updated Edition): An open letter to a new generation of therapists and their patients”, p.179, Hachette UK

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Every person must choose how much truth he can stand.

Irvin D. Yalom

Persons

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Self-awareness is a supreme gift, a treasure as precious as life. 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

Self, Forever, Treasure

Irvin D. Yalom (2010). “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death”, p.14, John Wiley & Sons

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Living safely is dangerous.

Irvin D. Yalom

Dangerous

"Fictional character: Friedrich Nietzsche". "When Nietzsche Wept", www.imdb.com. 2007.

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The more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.

Irvin D. Yalom

Anxiety, Greater

Irvin D. Yalom (2010). “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death”, p.49, John Wiley & Sons

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Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)

Irvin D. Yalom

Heal, Healer, Wounded

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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

Irvin D. Yalom

Tragedy, Looks, Height

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Some day soon, perhaps in forty years, there will be no one alive who has ever known me. That's when I will be truly dead - when I exist in no one's memory. I thought a lot about how someone very old is the last living individual to have known some person or cluster of people. When that person dies, the whole cluster dies,too, vanishes from the living memory. I wonder who that person will be for me. Whose death will make me truly dead?

Irvin D. Yalom

Memories, Years, People

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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. Rather, love is a way of being, a "giving to," not a 'falling for"; a mode of relating at large, not an act limited to a single person.

Irvin D. Yalom

Falling In Love, Passion, Love Is

Irvin D. Yalom (2012). “Love's Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy”, p.20, Basic Books

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I think we ripple on into others, just like a stone puts its ripples into a brook. That, for me, too, is a source of comfort. It kind of, in a sense, negates the sense of total oblivion. Some piece of ourselves, not necessarily our consciousness, but some piece of ourselves gets passed on and on and on.

Irvin D. Yalom

Thinking, Comfort, Pieces

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When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.

Irvin D. Yalom

People, Curiosity

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... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.

Irvin D. Yalom

Giving Up, Past, Giving

Irvin D. Yalom (2010). “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death”, p.92, John Wiley & Sons

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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.

Irvin D. Yalom

Existence, Possession, Plans

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To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone.

Irvin D. Yalom

Responsible

Irvin D. Yalom (1980). “Existential Psychotherapy”, p.357, Basic Books

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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.

Irvin D. Yalom

Way, Admire, Behave

Irvin D. Yalom (1980). “Existential Psychotherapy”, Basic Books (AZ)

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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.

Irvin D. Yalom

Mean, Care, Individual

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Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.

Irvin D. Yalom

Ideas, May, Physicality

Irvin D. Yalom (2012). “Love's Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy”, p.15, Basic Books

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...the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety. The more you fail to experience your life fully, the more you will fear death.

Irvin D. Yalom

Anxiety, Failing, Fear Of Death

Irvin D. Yalom (2010). “Staring at the Sun: Overcoming the Terror of Death”, p.49, John Wiley & Sons

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The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.

Irvin D. Yalom

Men, Choices, Spirit

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Psychiatry is a strange field because, unlike any other field of medicine, you never really finish. Your greatest instrument is you, yourself, and the work of self-understanding is endless. I'm still learning.

Irvin D. Yalom

Self, Medicine, Understanding

Irvin D. Yalom (2012). “The Spinoza Problem: A Novel”, p.167, Basic Books

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Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.

Irvin D. Yalom

Life, Important, Therapeutic

Irvin D. Yalom (2012). “Love's Executioner: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy”, p.36, Basic Books

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Irvin D. Yalom

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Born: June 13, 1931
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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