373 Quotes by Irvin D. Yalom

The spirit of a man is constructed out of his choices.

Remember, you can’t do all the work. Be content to help a patient realize what must be done and then trust his or her own desire for growth and change.

Remember, you can’t do all the work. Be content to help a patient realize what mustbe done and then trust his or her own desire for growth and change.

Sensuality is a bitch that nips at our heels! And how nicely this bitch knows how to beg for a piece of spirit when denied a piece of meat.

Never take away anything if you have nothing better to offer. Beware of stripping a patient who can’t bear the chill of reality. And don’t exhaust yourself by jousting with religious magic: you’re no match for it. The thirst for religion is too strong, its roots too deep, its cultural reinforcement too powerful.

I must assume that knowing is better than not know, venturing better than not venturing; and that magic and illusion, however rich, however alluring, ultimately weaken the human spirit. I take with deep seriousness Thomas Hardy's words, 'If a way to the Better there be, it exacts a full look at the Worst.

How disquieting to realise that reality is an illusion, at best a democratisation of perception based on participant consensus.

The creative members of an orthodoxy, any orthodoxy, ultimately outgrow their disciplines.

Do I in any way profit from this misery?” Nietzsche finally responded. “I have reflected on that very question for many years. Perhaps I do profit. In two ways. You suggest that the attacks are caused by stress, but sometimes the opposite is true—that the attacks dissipate stress. My work is stressful. It requires me to face the dark side of existence, and the migraine attack, awful as it is, may be a cleansing convulsion that permits me to continue.