Irvin D. Yalom Quotes

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

“If you want to choose the pleasure of growth, prepare yourself for some pain.”

“Live your life to the fullest; and then, and only then, die. Don't leave any unlived life behind.”

“Living safely is dangerous.”

“Love obsession often serves as a distraction, keeping the individual’s gaze from more painful thoughts.”

“The act of revealing oneself fully to another and still being accepted may be the major vehicle of therapeutic help.”

“When people don't have any curiosity about themselves, that is always a bad sign.”

“Mature love is loving, not being loved.”

“The horror of death is ubiquitous and so great that a considerable amount of life energy is spent denying it.”

“To love means to be actively concerned for the life and the growth of another.”

“To the extent that one is responsible for one's life, one is alone.”

“As a general rule, the less one’s sense of life fulfillment, the greater one’s death anxiety.”

“Four major existential concerns—death, meaning in life, isolation, and freedom—play a crucial role in the inner life of every human being.”

“One of the great paradoxes of life is that self-awareness breeds anxiety.”

“People who feel empty never heal by merging with another incomplete person. On the contrary, two broken-winged birds coupled into one make for clumsy flight.

No amount of patience will help it fly; and, ultimately, each must be pried from the other, and wounds separately splinted.”

“Some people are wish-blocked, knowing neither what they feel nor what they want. Without opinions, without impulses, without inclinations, they become parasites on the desires of others.”

“When you meet someone, you know all about him. On subsequent meetings, you blind yourself to your own wisdom.”

“Nonetheless, the past is part of your present consciousness — it forms the spectacles through which you experience the present.”

“Only the wounded healer can truly heal.”

“Sometimes fate puts us in a position where right is wrong.”

“Although the physicality of death destroys us, the idea of ​​death saves us.”

“Fulfill yourself, realize your potential, live boldly and fully. Then, and only then, die without regret.”

“It is not the experiences themselves, but the way we interpret them that determine the quality of our lives.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The pain is there; when you close one door on it, it knocks to come in somewhere else.”

“Would you be willing to live this past year again and again for all eternity?”

“A person of high, rare mental gifts who is forced into a job which is merely useful is like a valuable vase decorated with the most beautiful painting and then used as a kitchen pot.”

“He who would be everything cannot be anything.”

“Life is a miserable thing. I have decided to spend my life thinking about it.”