Viktor Frankl

"Meaning can be found in three ways: in what we give to life, what we receive from life, and the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."

"The paradox of happiness is that it cannot be pursued directly; it must be ensued."

"In the end, we will be judged not by our words but by the meaning we lived."

"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."

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."

"The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances."

"Man's search for meaning is the primary human motivation."

"Those who have a 'why' to live can bear with almost any 'how.'"

"Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning."

"Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, but a quest for meaning."

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude."

"An active life serves the purpose of giving man a chance to realize his values."

"The consciousness of one's inner freedom is the basis of mental health."

"Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under the most difficult circumstances, decide what his life is to have been."

"What matters is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."

"There is nothing in the world that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life."

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality."

"By declaring that life is meaningful even in its darkest and most tragic aspects, a man masters his fate."

"The freedom to will is conditioned by the necessity to will."

"Live as if you were living for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now."

"Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude."

"When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept the suffering as his task."

"The will to meaning is the primary force in human nature."

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

"Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be."

"Success cannot be pursued; it must ensue."

"Happiness ensues from the pursuit of meaningful goals, not from the pursuit of happiness itself."

"The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is."

"Pleasure cannot be the goal of man, but knowledge can be."

"Being human always points and is directed to something, or someone, other than itself."