Viktor Frankl

"I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the greatness of the human spirit."

"The prisoner who had lost faith in the future was doomed."

"Life's meaning differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour."

"The only thing we have is our attitude, and that is the one thing the enemy cannot touch."

"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing: your freedom to choose how you will respond."

"Frankly, I do not mind if the reader calls my concepts petty or unimportant so long as he finds them useful."

"The meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."

"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering."

"It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future."

"The experiences of camp life show that man does not disintegrate under stress nearly as much under physical deprivation as under psychological and spiritual decadence."

"Prisoners who thought they would be released by Christmas became profoundly depressed when Christmas came and went."

"More importantly, Frankl suggests that in order for life to have meaning, we do not necessarily need to be happy."

"Thus it can be seen that mental health is based upon a certain degree of tension—the tension between one's present state and a state one wishes to achieve."

"This is the concentration camp's greatest cruelty: to make the prisoner realize that it no longer matters what he thinks of his wife, his children, his home, or his God."

"A man may retain his dignity and his humanity even when subjected to the most oppressive and degrading circumstances."

"I absolutely insist that the logotherapy, including the reorientation it demands, is to be understood as an existential analysis, a procedure in which man is invited to become aware of his responsibility."

"The congregation was silent, and it seemed as if it were holding its breath while the Reverend Holmes was reading aloud the words which are perhaps most pertinent of all: Do not lose hope."

"One could make a victory of those experiences by the way one bore them."

"Meaning can be found even in the darkest moments."

"Ultimately, it is the search for meaning that sustains us, not comfort or pleasure."

"The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected."

"I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."

"For what then matters is our attitude toward unavoidable suffering, the attitude in which we take our unavoidable fate upon us."

"The attempt to escape from pain, rather than enduring it, may be understood as a path that leads away from meaning."

"A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining."

"To live is to suffer; to survive is to find meaning in the suffering."

"The true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche."

"We cannot change our external circumstances, but we can always choose our internal response to them."

"Man's search for meaning is a primary force in his life and not a secondary rationalization of instinctual drives."

"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."