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I think my quarry is illusion. I war against magic. I believe that, though illusion often cheers and comforts, it ultimately and invariably weakens and constricts the spirit.

Irvin D. Yalom

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Irvin D. Yalom
Age: 93
Born: 1931
Born: June 13
Author
Existential Therapist
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
University Teacher
Writer
Washington
District of Columbia
Irvin David Yalom
Believe
Ultimately
Think
Illusion
Thinking
Comfort
Quarry
Magic
Cheers
Though
Weakens
War
Comforts
Often
Invariably
Spirit
Cheer

More quotes by Irvin D. Yalom

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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
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When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
Irvin D. Yalom
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If we look at life in its small details, how ridiculous it all seems. It is like a drop of water seen through a microscope, a single drop teeming with protozoa. How we laugh as they bustle about so eagerly and struggle with one another. Whether here, or in the little span of human life, this terrible activity produces a comic effect
Irvin D. Yalom
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He had learned long ago that, in general, the easier it was for anxious patients to reach him, the less likely they were to call. (107)
Irvin D. Yalom
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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, Pandora's box, but to re-enter life in a richer, more compassionate manner.
Irvin D. Yalom
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Psychotherapy is a cyclical process from isolation into relationship. It is cyclical because the patient, in terror of existential isolation, relates deeply and meaningfully to the therapist and then, strengthened by this encounter, is led back again to a confrontation with existential isolation.
Irvin D. Yalom
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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
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Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
Irvin D. Yalom
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Live right, he reminded himself, and have faith that good things will flow from you even if you never learn of them.
Irvin D. Yalom
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Death, however, does itch. It itches all the time. It is always with us, scratching at some inner door. Mirroring, softly, barely audibly, just under the membrane of consciousness. Hidden in disguise, leaking out in a variety of symptoms. It is the wellspring of many of our worries, stresses, and conflicts.
Irvin D. Yalom
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To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
Irvin D. Yalom
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A curious thought experiment. . . Nietzsche's message to us was to live life in such a way that we would be willing to repeat the same life eternally
Irvin D. Yalom
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... sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.
Irvin D. Yalom
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If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
Irvin D. Yalom
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Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
Irvin D. Yalom
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Not to take possession of your life plan is to let your existence be an accident.
Irvin D. Yalom
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Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
Irvin D. Yalom
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None of my patients are really troubled by the idea that some part of what they say might be in a book in the future. Some have expressed the very opposite feeling--the fear that they would not be interesting enough to write about.
Irvin D. Yalom
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If one is to love oneself one must behave in ways that one can admire.
Irvin D. Yalom
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I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
Irvin D. Yalom