Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

33 Sourced Quotes

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

Irvin D. Yalom
Despite the staunchest, most venerable defenses, we can never completely subdue death anxiety: it is always there, lurking in some hidden ravine of the mind.

Irvin D. Yalom
Absolute power, as we have always known, corrupts absolutely; it corrupts because it does not do the trick for the individual. Reality always creeps in--the reality of our helplessness and our mortality; the reality that, despite our reach for the stars, a creaturely fate awaits us.

Irvin D. Yalom
As we reach the crest of life and look at the path before us, we apprehend that the path no longer ascends but slopes downward toward decline and diminishment. From that point on, concerns about death are never far from mind.

Irvin D. Yalom
One comprehends oneself in order not to be preoccupied with oneself.

Irvin D. Yalom
To the best of my knowledge, every acute inpatient ward offers some inpatient group therapy experience. Indeed, the evidence supporting the efficacy of group therapy, and the prevailing sentiment of the mental health profession, are sufficiently strong that it would be difficult to defend the adequacy of the inpatient unit that attempted to operate without a small group program.

Irvin D. Yalom
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
Sooner or later she had to give up the hope for a better past.

Irvin D. Yalom