Man's Search for Meaning

"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an eradicable part of life."

"A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who loves him, or to any human being whose fate depends upon his own work, will never be able to throw away his life."

"It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness."

"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."

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

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

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

"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."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"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."

"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."

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

"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."

"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."

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

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

"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."

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

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