...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 More Quotes by Irvin D. Yalom More Quotes From Irvin D. Yalom The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help. Irvin D. Yalom accepted may helping Every person must choose how much truth he can stand. Irvin D. Yalom persons 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 If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain. Irvin D. Yalom growth pain want 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-to-the-fullest live-your-life behinds If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic. Irvin D. Yalom height tragedy looks To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another. Irvin D. Yalom love-means growth mean Only the wounded healer can truly heal. (97) Irvin D. Yalom healer wounded heal 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 people years 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 pieces comfort thinking 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 Living safely is dangerous. Irvin D. Yalom dangerous 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 treasure self forever When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign. Irvin D. Yalom curiosity people It's not easy to live every moment wholly aware of death. It's like trying to stare the sun in the face: you can stand only so much of it. Because we cannot live frozen in fear, we generate methods to soften death's terror. We project ourselves into the future through our children; we grow rich, famous, ever larger; we develop compulsive protective rituals; or we embrace an impregnable belief in an ultimate rescuer. Irvin D. Yalom trying death children One thing I feel clear about is that it's important not to let your life live you. Otherwise, you end up at forty feeling you haven't really lived. What have I learned? Perhaps to live now, so that at fifty I won't look back upon my forties with regret. Irvin D. Yalom regret important feelings 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 medicine understanding self One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself. Irvin D. Yalom oneself order Despair is the price one pays for self-awareness. Look deeply into life, and you'll always find despair. Irvin D. Yalom despair self looks Life is a spark between two identical voids, the darkness before birth and the one after death. Irvin D. Yalom sparks darkness two