Living safely is dangerous.

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.

If we climb high enough, we will reach a height from which tragedy ceases to look tragic.

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

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

Religion has everything on its side: revelation, prophecies, government protection, the highest dignity and eminence. . . and more than this, the invaluable prerogative of being allowed to imprint its doctrines on the mind at a tender age of childhood, whereby they become almost innate ideas.

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