Irvin D. Yalom - Death Quotes

7 Sourced Quotes

View all Irvin D. Yalom Quotes
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
Death anxiety is the mother of all religions, which, in one way or another, attempt to temper the anguish of our finitude.

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
Though the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of death may save us.

Irvin D. Yalom
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
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
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