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Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
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
Birth
Darkness
Death
Two
Voids
Life
Spark
Identical
Sparks
Void
More quotes by Irvin D. Yalom
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
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
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
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
Irvin D. Yalom
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
The death anxiety of many people is fueled ... by disappointment at never having fulfilled their potential. 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. A focus on this deep dissatisfaction is often the starting point in overcoming death anxiety.
Irvin D. Yalom
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.
Irvin D. Yalom
One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
Irvin D. Yalom
Heidegger makes the distinction between being absorbed in the way things are in the world and being aware that things are in the world. And if you do the latter, you're not so worried about the everyday trivialities of life, for example, petty concerns about secrecy or privacy.
Irvin D. Yalom
Does a being who requires meaning find meaning in a universe that has no meaning?
Irvin D. Yalom
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
Live your life to the fullest and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind.
Irvin D. Yalom
Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97)
Irvin D. Yalom
If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.
Irvin D. Yalom
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
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
To care of another individual means to know and to experience the other as fully as possible.
Irvin D. Yalom
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Irvin D. Yalom
Mature love is loving, not being loved.
Irvin D. Yalom
Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
Irvin D. Yalom
