Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Messages
Nietzsche
Willing
Eternally
Thought
Repeat
Live
Experiment
Way
Repeats
Would
Experiments
Life
Curious
Message

More quotes by Irvin D. Yalom

Image
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
Image
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, when we have forgotten ourselves and become absorbed in someone (or something) outside ourselves
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I dream of a love that is more than two people craving to possess one another.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
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
Image
Mature love is loving, not being loved.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
The path to decision may be hard because it leads into the territory of both finiteness and groundlessness—domains soaked in anxiety.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
Look out the other’s window. Try to see the world as your patient sees it.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
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!
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Live your life to the fullest and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
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
Image
When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.
Irvin D. Yalom
Image
Perhaps the single most important therapeutic credo that I have is that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Irvin D. Yalom