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What Was Really Needed Was A Fundamental Change In Our Attitude Toward Life. We Had To Learn Ourselves And, Furthermore, We Had To Teach The Despairing Men, That It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life, But Rather What Life Expected From Us.

-Viktor E. Frankl

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What Was Really Needed

Viktor E. Frankl

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What Was Really Needed Was A Fundamental Change In Our Attitude Toward Life. We Had To Learn Ourselves And, Furthermore, We Had To Teach The Despairing Men, That It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life, But Rather What Life Expected From Us.

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At Any Moment, Man Must Decide, For Better Or For Worse, What Will Be The Monument Of His Existence.

I Became Acquainted With Those Martyrs Whose Behavior In Camp, Whose Suffering And Death, Bore Witness To The Fact That The Last Inner Freedom Cannot Be Lost.

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In Times Of Crisis, People Reach For Meaning. Meaning Is Strength. Our Survival May Depend On Our Seeking And Finding It.

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Ultimate Freedom Is A Man's Right To Choose His Attitude.

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We Needed To Stop Asking About The Meaning Of Life.

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I Recommend That The Statue Of Liberty Be Supplemented By A Statue Of Responsibility On The West Coast.

In Psychiatry There Is A Certain Condition Known As Delusion Of Reprieve. The Condemned Man, Immediately Before His Execution, Gets The Illusion That He Might Be Reprieved At The Very Last Minute. No One Could Yet Grasp The Fact That Everything Would Be Taken Away. All We Possessed, Literally, Was Our Naked Existence.

I Want You To Listen To What Your Conscience Commands You To Do And Go On To Carry It Out To The Best Of Your Knowledge. Then You Will Live To See That In The Long Run- In The Long Run, I Say! - Success Will Follow You Precisely Because You Had Forgotten To Think Of It.

It Is A Peculiarity Of Man That He Can Only Live By Looking To The Future.

Looking To The Future

Mans Search For Meaning

Forces Beyond Your Control Can Take Away Everything You Possess Except One Thing, Your Freedom To Choose How You Will Respond To The Situation.

Mans Search For Meaning

Success, Like Happiness, Is The Unexpected Side Effect Of One's Personal Dedication To A Cause Greater Than Oneself.

You Don't Create Your Mission In Life - You Detect It.

Missions In Life

Live As If You Were Living A Second Time, And As Though You Had Acted Wrongly The First Time.

...being Human Always Points, And Is Directed, To Something, Or Someone, Other Than Oneself—be It Meaning To Fulfill Or Another Human Being To Encounter. The More One Forgets Himself—by Giving Himself To A Cause To Serve Or Another Person To Love—the More Human He Is And The More He Actualizes Himself.... What Is Called Self-actualization Is Not An Attainable Aim At All, For The Simple Reason That The More One Would Strive For It, The More He Would Miss It. In Other Words, Self-actualization Is Possible Only As A Side-effect Of Self-transcendence.

The Salvation Of Man Is Through Love And In Love.

In Some Ways Suffering Ceases To Be Suffering At The Moment It Finds A Meaning, Such As The Meaning Of A Sacrifice.

Everything Can Be Taken From A Man But One Thing: The Last Of Human Freedoms - To Choose One's Attitude In Any Given Set Of Circumstances, To Choose One's Own Way.

Love Goes Very Far Beyond The Physical Person Of The Beloved. It Finds Its Deepest Meaning In Its Spiritual Being, His Inner Self. Whether Or Not He Is Actually Present, Whether Or Not He Is Still Alive At All, Ceases Somehow To Be Of Importance.

This Is The Core Of The Human Spirit ... If We Can Find Something To Live For - If We Can Find Some Meaning To Put At The Center Of Our Lives - Even The Worst Kind Of Suffering Becomes Bearable.

Self-actualization Cannot Be Attained If It Is Made An End In Itself, But Only As A Side Effect Of Self-transcendence.

As For The Concept Of Collective Guilt, I Personally Think That It Is Totally Unjustified To Hold One Person Responsible For The Behavior Of Another Person Or A Collective Of Persons.

A Man's Concern, Even His Despair, Over The Worthwhileness Of Life Is An Existential Distress But By No Means A Mental Disease.

Life Requires Of Man Spiritual Elasticity, So That He May Temper His Efforts To The Chances That Are Offered.

Man Is Capable Of Changing The World For The Better If Possible, And Of Changing Himself For The Better If Necessary.

Search For Meaning

What Is Demanded Of Man Is Not, As Some Existential Philosophers Teach, To Endure The Meaninglessness Of Life, But Rather To Bear His Incapacity To Grasp Its Unconditional Meaningfulness In Rational Terms.

It Is Always Important To Have Something Yet To Do In Life.

Humor Was Another Of The Soul's Weapons In The Fight For Self-preservation.

The Struggle For Existence Is A Struggle 'for' Something; It Is Purposeful And Only In So Being Is It Meaningful And Able To Bring Meaning Into Life.

Love Goes Very Far Beyond The Physical Person Of The Beloved.

Mans Search For Meaning

Search For Meaning

There Are Only Two Races, The Decent And The Indecent.

What You Have Experienced, No Power On Earth Can Take From You.

Mans Search For Meaning

The Last Freedom Is Choosing Your Attitude.

What Man Actually Needs Is Not A Tensionless State But Rather The Striving And Struggling For Some Goal Worthy Of Him. What He Needs Is Not The Discharge Of Tension At Any Cost, But The Call Of A Potential Meaning Waiting To Be Fulfilled By Him.

One Can Choose One's Attitude In Any Given Set Of Circumstances.

Positive Thinking

The Point Is Not What We Expect From Life, But Rather What Life Expects From Us.

Every Human Being Has The Freedom To Change At Any Instant.

Search For Meaning

A Human Being Is A Deciding Being.

Man’s Main Concern Is Not To Gain Pleasure Or To Avoid Pain But Rather To See A Meaning In His Life.

Our Main Motivation For Living Is Our Will To Find Meaning In Life.

Don't Aim At Success — The More You Aim At It And Make It A Target, The More You Are Going To Miss It. For Success, Like Happiness, Cannot Be Pursued; It Must Ensue, And It Only Does So As The Unintended Side-effect Of One's Personal Dedication To A Cause Greater Than Oneself Or As The By-product Of One's Surrender To A Person Other Than Oneself. Happiness Must Happen, And The Same Holds For Success: You Have To Let It Happen By Not Caring About It. I Want You To Listen To What Your Conscience Commands You To Do And Go On To Carry It Out To The Best Of Your Knowledge. Then You Will Live To See That In The Long Run — In The Long Run, I Say — Success Will Follow You Precisely Because You Had Forgotten To Think Of It.

Our Generation Is Realistic, For We Have Come To Know Man As He Really Is. After All, Man Is That Being Who Invented The Gas Chambers Of Auschwitz; However, He Is Also That Being Who Entered Those Gas Chambers Upright, With The Lord's Prayer Or The Shema Yisrael On His Lips.

It Is The Pursuit Of Happiness That Thwarts Happiness.

Pursuit Of Happiness

These Tasks, And Therefore The Meaning Of Life, Differ From Man To Man, And From Moment To Moment. Thus It Is Impossible To Define The Meaning In Life In A General Way.

Meaning Of Life

You Can Take Away My Wife, You Can Take Away My Children, You Can Strip Me Of My Clothes And My Freedom, But There Is One Thing No Person Can Ever Take Away From Me - And That Is My Freedom To Choose How I Will React To What Happens To Me!

A Man Who Could Not See The End Of His"provisional Existence" Was Not Able To Aim At An Ultimate Goal In Life.

The Transitoriness Of Our Existence In Now Way Makes It Meaningless. But It Does Constitute Our Responsibleness; For Everything Hinges Upon Our Realizing The Essentially Transitory Possibilities.

There Is Nothing In The World, I Venture To Say, That Would So Effectively Help One To Survive Even The Worst Conditions As The Knowledge That There Is A Meaning In One's Life.

For Success, Like Happiness, Cannot Be Pursued; It Must Ensue, And It Only Does So As The Unintended Side-effect Of One's Personal Dedication To A Cause Greater Than Oneself Or As The By-product Of One's Surrender To A Person Other Than Oneself.

Sunday Neurosis, That Kind Of Depression Which Afflicts People Who Become Aware Of The Lack Of Content In Their Lives When The Rush Of The Busy Week Is Over And The Void Within Themselves Becomes Manifest.

Ever More People Today Have The Means To Live, But No Meaning To Live For.

Love Is The Only Way To Grasp Another Human Being In The Innermost Core Of His Personality

Ironically Enough, In The Same Way That Fear Brings To Pass What One Is Afraid Of, Likewise A Forced Intention Makes Impossible What One Forcibly Wishes... Pleasure Is, And Must Remain, A Side-effect Or By-product, And Is Destroyed And Spoiled To The Degree To Which It Is Made A Goal In Itself.

Since Auschwitz We Know What Man Is Capable Of. And Since Hiroshima We Know What Is At Stake.

I Try To Do Everything As Soon As Possible, And Not At The Last Moment. This Ensures That, When I Am Overburdened With Work, I Will Not Face The Added Pressure Of Knowing That Something Is Still To Be Done.

What Was Really Needed Was A Fundamental Change In Our Attitude Toward Life. We Had To Learn Ourselves And, Furthermore, We Had To Teach The Despairing Men, That It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life, But Rather What Life Expected From Us.

The Last Of Human Freedoms - The Ability To Chose One's Attitude Especially An Attitude Of Gratitude In A Given Set Of Circumstances Especially In Difficult Circumstances.

The Way In Which A Man Accepts His Fate And All The Suffering It Entails, The Way In Which He Takes Up His Cross, Gives Him Ample Opportunity — Even Under The Most Difficult Circumstances — To Add A Deeper Meaning To His Life. It May Remain Brave, Dignified And Unselfish. Or In The Bitter Fight For Self Preservation He May Forget His Human Dignity And Become No More Than An Animal

The Existential Vacuum Manifests Itself Mainly In A State Of Boredom.

Freedom Is In Danger Of Degenerating Into Mere Arbitrariness Unless It Is Lived In Terms Of Responsibleness. That Is Why I Recommend That The Statue Of Liberty On The East Coast Be Supplemented By A Statue Of Responsibility On The West Coast.

A Man Who Becomes Conscious Of The Responsibility He Bears Toward A Human Being Who Affectionately Waits For Him, Or To An Unfinished Work, Will Never Be Able To Throw Away His Life. He Knows The "why" For His Existence, And Will Be Able To Bear Almost Any "how."

A Human Being Is Not One Thing Among Others; Things Determine Each Other, But Man Is Ultimately Self-determining. What He Becomes-within The Limits Of Endowment And Environment-he Has Made Out Of Himself.

Man Ultimately Decides For Himself! And In The End, Education Must Be Education Towards The Ability To Decide

We Had To Learn...that It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life But Rather What Life Expected From Us.

Live In The Moment

Even When It Is Not Fully Attained, We Become Better By Striving For A Higher Goal.

The Quest For Meaning Is The Key To Mental Health And Human Flourishing

Everyone Has His Own Specific Vocation Or Mission In Life; Everyone Must Carry Out A Concrete Assignment That Demands Fulfillment. Therein He Cannot Be Replaced, Nor Can His Life Be Repeated, Thus, Everyone's Task Is Unique As His Specific Opportunity To Implement It.

Our Greatest Freedom Is The Freedom To Choose Our Attitude.

Freedom To Choose

The Incurable Sufferer Is Given Very Little Opportunity To Be Proud Of His Suffering And To Consider It Ennobling Rather Than Degrading" So That "he Is Not Only Unhappy, But Also Ashamed Of Being Unhappy.

Our Greatest Human Freedom Is That, Despite Whatever Our Physical Situation Is In Life, We Are Always Free To Choose Our Thoughts!

Challenging The Meaning Of Life Is The Truest Expression Of The State Of Being Human.

I Understood How A Man Who Has Nothing Left In This World May Still Know Bliss, Be It Only For A Brief Moment, In The Contemplation Of His Beloved. In A Position Of Utter Desolation, When A Man Cannot Express Himself In Positive Action, When His Only Achievement May Consist In Enduring His Sufferings In The Right Way - An Honorable Way - In Such A Position Man Can, Through Loving Contemplation Of The Image He Carries Of His Beloved, Achieve Fulfillment.

I Understood How A Man Who Has Nothing Left In This World Still May Know Bliss, Be It Only For A Brief Moment, In The Contemplation Of His Beloved.

How Can We Dare To Predict The Behavior Of Man? We May Predict The Movements Of A Machine, Of An Automaton; More Than This, We Many Even Try To Predict The Mechanisms Or "dynamisms" Of The Human Psyche As Well. But Man Is More Than Psyche.

I Would Say That Our Patients Never Really Despair Because Of Any Suffering In Itself! Instead, Their Despair Stems In Each Instance From A Doubt As To Whether Suffering Is Meaningful. Man Is Ready And Willing To Shoulder Any Suffering As Soon And As Long As He Can See A Meaning In It.

In A Last Violent Protest Against The Hopelessness Of Imminent Death, I Sensed My Spirit Piercing Through The Enveloping Gloom. I Felt It Transcend That Hopeless, Meaningless World, And From Somewhere I Heard A Victorious "yes" In Answer To My Question Of The Existence Of An Ultimate Purpose. At That Moment A Light Was Lit In A Distant Farmhouse, Which Stood On The Horizon As If Painted There, In The Midst Of The Miserable Gray Of A Dawning Morning In Bavaria. "et Lux In Tenebris Lucet"-and The Light Shineth In The Darkness.

Man's Search For Meaning Is The Chief Motivation Of His Life.

Between Stimulus And Response Is The Freedom To Choose.

Stimulus And Response

What Will It Matter To Him If He Notices That He Is Growing Old? Has He Any Reason To Envy The Young People Whom He Sees, Or Wax Nostalgic Over His Own Lost Youth? What Reasons Has He To Envy A Young Person? For The Possibilities That A Young Person Has, The Future Which Is In Store For Him? "no, Thank You," He Will Think. "instead Of Possibilities, I Have Realities In My Past, Not Only The Reality Of Work Done And Love Loved, But Of Sufferings Bravely Suffered. These Sufferings Are Even The Things Of Which I Am Most Proud, Though These Things Are Things That Cannot Inspire Envy."

Austrian Public-opinion Pollsters Recently Reported That Those Held In Highest Esteem By Most Of The People Interviewed Are Neither The Great Artists Nor The Great Scientists, Neither The Great Statesmen Nor The Great Sport Figures, But Those Who Master A Hard Lot With Their Heads Held High.

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.

Only To The Extent That Someone Is Living Out This Self Transcendence Of Human Existence, Is He Truly Human Or Does He Become His True Self. He Becomes So, Not By Concerning Himself With His Self's Actualization, But By Forgetting Himself And Giving Himself, Overlooking Himself And Focusing Outward.

To Be Sure, Man's Search For Meaning May Arouse Inner Tension Rather Than Inner Equilibrium. However, Precisely Such Tension Is An Indispensable Prerequisite Of Mental Health. There Is Nothing In The World, I Venture To Say, That Would So Effectively Help One To Survive Even The Worst Conditions As The Knowledge That There Is A Meaning In One's Life. There Is Much Wisdom In The Words Of Nietzsche: "he Who Has A Why To Live For Can Bear Almost Any How

There Are Some Authors Who Contend That Meanings And Values Are "nothing But Defense Mechanisms, Reaction Formations And Sublimations." But As For Myself, I Would Not Be Willing To Live Merely For The Sake Of My "defense Mechanisms," Nor Would I Be Ready To Die Merely For The Sake Of My "reaction Formations.

Nothing Is Likely To Help A Person Overcome Or Endure Troubles Than The Consciousness Of Having A Task In Life.

Being Tolerant Does Not Mean That I Share Another One's Belief. But It Does Mean That I Acknowledge Another One's Right To Believe, And Obey, His Own Conscience.

For The First Time In My Life I Saw The Truth As It Is Set Into Song By So Many Poets, Proclaimed As The Final Wisdom By So Many Thinkers. The Truth - That Love Is The Ultimate And Highest Goal To Which Man Can Aspire. Then I Grasped The Meaning Of The Greatest Secret That Human Poetry And Human Thought And Belief Have To Impart: The Salvation Of Man Is Through Love And In Love.

In His Creative Work The Artist Is Dependent On Sources And Resources Deriving From The Spiritual Unconscious.

There Is Also Purpose In Life Which Is Almost Barren Of Both Creation And Enjoyment And Which Admits Of But One Possibility Of High Moral Behavior: Namely, In Man's Attitude To His Existence, An Existence Restricted By External Forces.

What Is To Give Light Must Endure Burning.

A Life Of Short Duration...could Be So Rich In Joy And Love That It Could Contain More Meaning Than A Life Lasting Eighty Years.

Man's Last Freedom Is His Freedom To Choose How He Will React In Any Given Situation

When We Are Not Any Lengthier Capable To Alter A Predicament, We're Challenged To Alter Ourselves

I Never Would Have Made It If I Could Not Have Laughed. It Lifted Me Momentarily Out Of This Horrible Situation, Just Enough To Make It Livable.

Just As A Small Fire Is Extinguished By The Storm Whereas A Large Fire Is Enhanced By It - Likewise A Weak Faith Is Weakened By Predicament And Catastrophes Whereas A Strong Faith Is Strengthened By Them.

Famous Inspirational

The Last Of The Human Freedoms — To Choose One's Attitude In Any Given Set Of Circumstances, To Choose One's Own Way.

We Who Lived In Concentration Camps Can Remember The Men Who Walked Through The Huts Comforting Others, Giving Away Their Last Piece Of Bread. They May Have Been Few In Number, But They Offer Sufficient Proof That 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, To Choose One's Own Way.

Either Belief In God Is Unconditional Or It Is No Belief At All.

It Is A Peculiarity Of Man That He Can Only Live By Looking To The Future...and This Is His Salvation In The Most Difficult Moments Of His Existence, Although He Sometimes Has To Force His Mind To The Task.

Happiness Must Ensue. It Cannot Be Pursued

The Attempt To Develop A Sense Of Humor And To See Things In A Humorous Light Is Some Kind Of A Trick Learned While Mastering The Art Of Living.

The One Thing You Can’t Take Away From Me Is The Way I Choose To Respond To What You Do To Me. The Last Of One’s Freedoms Is To Choose Ones Attitude In Any Given Circumstance.

To Suffer Unecessarily Is Masochistic Rather Than Heroic.

No One Can Take From Us The Ability To Choose Our Attitudes Toward The Circumstances In Which We Find Ourselves. This Is The Last Of Human Freedoms.

Man Is Not Fully Conditioned And Determined But Rather Determines Himself Whether He Gives In To Conditions Or Stands Up To Them. In Other Words, Man Is Ultimately Self-determining. Man Does Not Simply Exist But Always Decides What His Existence Will Be, What He Will Become In The Next Moment.

If We Take A Man As He Is, We Make Him Worse, But If We Take Man As He Should Be We Make Him Capable Of Becoming What He Can Be.

When A Person Can’t Find A Deep Sense Of Meaning, They Distract Themselves With Pleasure.

Instead Of Possibilities, I Have Realities In My Past, Not Only The Reality Of Work Done And Of Love Loved, But Of Sufferings Bravely Suffered. These Sufferings Are Even The Things Of Which I Am Most Proud, Though These Are Things Which Cannot Inspire Envy.

For The World Is In A Bad State, But Everything Will Become Still Worse Unless Each Of Us Does His Best.

Most Important, However, Is The Third Avenue To Meaning In Life: Even The Helpless Victim Of A Hopeless Situation, Facing A Fate He Cannot Change, May Rise Above Himself, May Grow Beyond Himself, And By So Doing Change Himself. He May Turn A Personal Tragedy Into A Triumph.

Decisions, Not Conditions, Determine What A Man Is.

Ultimately, We Are Not Subject To The Conditions That Confront Us; Rather, These Conditions Are Subject To Our Decision ... We Must Decide Whether We Will Face Up Or Give In, Whether Or Not We Will Let Ourselves Be Determined By The Conditions.

It Is Here That We Encounter The Central Theme Of Existentialism: To Live Is To Suffer, To Survive Is To Find Meaning In The Suffering.

Ultimately, Man Should Not Ask What The Meaning Of His Life Is, But Rather He Must Recognize That It Is He Who Is Asked.

Meaning Of Life

The More One Forgets One’s Own Self, The More Human The Person Becomes.

Sleep [is Like] A Dove Which Has Landed Near One's Hand And Stays There As Long As One Does Not Pay Any Attention To It.

It Is Not Freedom From Conditions, But It Is Freedom To Take A Stand Toward The Conditions.

Mans Search For Meaning

Search For Meaning

View Life As A Series Of Movie Frames, The Ending And Meaning May Not Be Apparent Until The Very End Of The Movie, And Yet, Each Of The Hundreds Of Individual Frames Has Meaning Within The Context Of The Whole Movie.

Even Though Conditions Such As Lack Of Sleep, Insufficient Food And Various Mental Stresses May Suggest That The Inmates Were Bound To React In Certain Ways, In The Final Analysis It Becomes Clear That The Sort Of Person The Prisoner Became Was The Result Of An Inner Decision, And Not The Result Of Camp Influences Alone.

The Angels Are Lost In Perpetual Contemplation Of An Infinite Glory.

Each Man Is Questioned By Life; And He Can Only Answer To Life By Answering For His Own Life; To Life He Can Only Respond By Being Responsible.

Then I Grasped The Meaning Of The Greatest Secret That Human Poetry And Human Thought And Belief Have To Impart: The Salvation Of Man Is Through Love And In Love.

When A Man Finds That It Is His Destiny To Suffer, He Will Have To Accept His Suffering As His Task. . . . He Will Have To Acknowledge The Fact That Even In Suffering He Is Unique And Alone In The Universe. No One Can Relieve Him Of His Suffering Or Suffer In His Place. His Unique Opportunity Lies In The Way In Which He Bears His Burden.

Fear May Come True That Which One Is Afraid Of.

Those Who Know How Close The Connection Is Between The State Of Mind Of A Man-his Courage And Hope, Or Lack Of Them-and The State Of Immunity Of His Body Will Understand That The Sudden Loss Of Hope And Courage Can Have A Deadly Effect. The Ultimate Cause Of My Friend's Death Was That The Expected Liberation Did Not Come And He Was Severely Disappointed.

Success Is Total Self-acceptance.

Self Acceptance

To Draw An Analogy: A Man's Suffering Is Similar To The Behavior Of A Gas. If A Certain Quantity Of Gas Is Pumped Into An Empty Chamber, It Will Fill The Chamber Completely And Evenly, No Matter How Big The Chamber. Thus Suffering Completely Fills The Human Soul And Conscious Mind, No Matter Whether The Suffering Is Great Or Little. Therefore The "size" Of Human Suffering Is Absolutely Relative.

To The European, It Is A Characteristic Of The American Culture That, Again And Again, One Is Commanded And Ordered To 'be Happy.' But Happiness Cannot Be Pursued; It Must Ensue. One Must Have A Reason To 'be Happy.' Once The Reason Is Found, However, One Becomes Happy Automatically. As We See, A Human Being Is Not One In Pursuit Of Happiness But Rather In Search Of A Reason To Become Happy, Last But Not Least, Through Actualizing The Potential Meaning Inherent And Dormant In A Given Situation.

Pursuit Of Happiness

No One Can Become Fully Aware Of The Very Essence Of Another Human Being Unless He Loves Him.

Suffering Presents Us With A Challenge: To Find Our Goals And Purpose In Our Lives That Make Even The Worst Situation Worth Living Through.

Worst Situation

As The Struggle For Survival Has Subsided, The Question Has Emerged: Survival For What? Ever More People Have The Means To Live, But No Meaning To Live For.

A Human Being Is Not One Thing Among Others; Things Determine Each Other, But Man Is Ultimately Self-determining. What He Becomes - Within The Limits Of Endowment And Environment- He Has Made Out Of Himself. In The Concentration Camps, For Example, In This Living Laboratory And On This Testing Ground, We Watched And Witnessed Some Of Our Comrades Behave Like Swine While Others Behaved Like Saints. Man Has Both Potentialities Within Himself; Which One Is Actualized Depends On Decisions But Not On Conditions.

We Cannot, After All, Judge A Biography By Its Length, By The Number Of Pages In It; We Must Judge By The Richness Of The Contents...sometimes The 'unfinisheds' Are Among The Most Beautiful Symphonies.

No Man Should Judge Unless He Asks Himself In Absolute Honesty Whether In A Similar Situation He Might Not Have Done The Same.

As A Professor In Two Fields, Neurology And Psychiatry, I Am Fully Aware Of The Extent To Which Man Is Subject To Biological, Psychological And Sociological Conditions. But In Addition To Being A Professor In Two Fields I Am A Survivor Of Four Camps - Concentration Camps, That Is - And As Such I Also Bear Witness To The Unexpected Extent To Which Man Is Capable Of Defying And Braving Even The Worst Conditions Conceivable.

We Must Never Forget That We May Also Find Meaning In Life Even When Confronted With A Hopeless Situation, When Facing A Fate That Cannot Be Changed. For What Then Matters Is To Bear Witness To The Uniquely Human Potential At Its Best, Which Is To Transform A Personal Tragedy Into A Triumph, To Turn One's Predicament Into A Human Achievement. When We Are No Longer Able To Change A Situation-just Think Of An Incurable Disease Such As Inoperable Cancer-we Are Challenged To Change Ourselves.

Once An Individual's Search For Meaning Is Successful, It Not Only Renders Him Happy But Also Gives Him The Capability To Cope With Suffering

The Meaning Of Our Existence Is Not Invented By Ourselves, But Rather Detected.

Mans Search For Meaning

For 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.

Having Been Is Also A Kind Of Being, And Perhaps The Surest Kind.

We Can Discover This Meaning In Life In Three Different Ways: 1. By Doing A Deed; 2. By Experiencing A Value; And 3. By Suffering.

An Abnormal Reaction To An Abnormal Situation Is Normal Behavior.

Pain From Problems And Disappointments, Etc., Is Inevitable In Life, But Suffering Is A Choice Determined By Whether You Choose To Compare Your Experience And Pain To Something Better And Therefore Feel Unlucky And Bitter Or To Something Worse And Therefore Feel Lucky And Grateful!

Love Is The Only Way To Grasp Another Human Being In The Innermost Core Of His Personality. No One Can Become Fully Aware Of The Very Essence Of Another Human Being Unless He Loves Him. By His Love He Is Enabled To See The Essential Traits And Features.

When A Man Cannot Find Meaning, He Numbs Himself With Pleasure.

I Am Absolutely Convinced That The Gas Chambers Of Auschwitz, Treblinka, And Maidanek Were Ultimately Prepared Not In Some Ministry Or Other In Berlin, But Rather At The Desks And In The Lecture Halls Of Nihilistic Scientists And Philosophers.

Now, It Is My Contention That The Deneuroticization Of Humanity Requires A Rehumanization Of Psychotherapy.

When A Man Finds That It Is His Destiny To Suffer, He Will Have To Accept His Suffering As His Task; His Single And Unique Task. He Will Have To Acknowledge The Fact That Even In Suffering He Is Unique And Alone In The Universe. No One Can Relieve Him Of His Suffering Or Suffer In His Place. His Unique Opportunity Lies In The Way In Which He Bears His Burden.

It Is Well Known That Humor, More Than Anything Else In The Human Make-up, Can Afford An Aloofness And An Ability To Rise Above Any Situation, Even If Only For A Few Seconds.

Woe To Him Who Saw No More Sense In His Life, No Aim, No Purpose, And Therefore No Point In Carrying On.

I Do Not Forget Any Good Deed Done To Me & I Do Not Carry A Grudge For A Bad One.

Fundamentally, Therefore, Any Man Can, Even Under Such Circumstances, Decide What Shall Become Of Him—mentally And Spiritually. He May Retain His Human Dignity Even In A Concentration Camp.

The One Thing You Can't Take Away From Me Is The Way I Choose To Respond To What You Do To Me.

But There Was No Need To Be Ashamed Of Tears, For Tears Bore Witness That A Man Had The Greatest Of Courage, The Courage To Suffer.

It Did Not Really Matter What We Expected From Life, But Rather What Life Expected From Us. We Needed To Stop Asking About The Meaning Of Life, And Instead To Think Of Ourselves As Those Who Were Being Questioned By Life—daily And Hourly. Our Answer Must Consist, Not In Talk And Meditation, But In Right Action And In Right Conduct. Life Ultimately Means Taking The Responsibility To Find The Right Answer To Its Problems And To Fulfill The Tasks Which It Constantly Sets For Each Individual.

As Such, I Also Bear Witness To The Unexpected Extent To Which Man Is Capable Of Defying And Braving Even The Worst Conditions Conceivable.

Life Can Be Pulled By Goals Just As Surely As It Can Be Pushed By Drives.

At Such A Moment, It Is Not The Physical Pain Which Hurts The Most (and This Applies To Adults As Much As To Punished Children); It Is The Mental Agony Caused By The Injustice, The Unreasonableness Of It All.

Life Asks Of Every Individual A Contribution, And It Is Up To That Individual To Discover What It Should Be

Somewhere I Heard A Victorious "yes" In Answer To My Question Of The Existence Of Ultimate Purpose.

The More One Forgives Himself - By Giving Himself To A Cause To Serve Or Another Person To Love - The More Human He Is And The More He Actualizes Himself.

Self Actualization

I Had Wanted Simply To Convey To The Reader By Way Of Concrete Example That Life Holds A Potential Meaning Under Any Conditions, Even The Most Miserable Ones. And I Thought That If The Point Were Demonstrated In A Situation As Extreme As That In A Concentration Camp, My Book Might Gain A Hearing. I Therefore Felt Responsible For Writing Down What I Had Gone Through, For I Thought It Might Be Helpful To People Who Are Prone To Despair.

Man Can Only Find Meaning For His Existence In Something Outside Himself.

Here Lies The Chance For A Man Either To Make Use Of Or To Forgo The Opportunities Of Attaining The Moral Values That A Difficult Situation May Afford Him. And This Decides Whether He Is Worthy Of His Sufferings Or Not.

Set Me Like A Seal Upon Thy Heart, Love Is As Strong As Death.

Life Is Not Primarily A Quest For Pleasure, As Freud Believed, Or A Quest For Power, As Alfred Adler Taught, But A Quest For Meaning. The Greatest Task For Any Person Is To Find Meaning In His Or Her Own Life.

Life Ultimately Means Taking The Responsibility To Find The Right Answer To Its Problems And To Fulfill The Tasks Which It Constantly Sets For Each Individual.

A Sound Philosophy Of Life, I Think, May Be The Most Valuable Asset For A Psychiatrist To Have When He Is Treating A Patient.

Human Kindness Can Be Found In All Groups, Even Those Which As A Whole It Would Be Easy To Condemn.

Our Attitude Towards What Has Happened To Us In Life Is The Important Thing To Recognize. Once Hopeless, My Life Is Now Hope-full, But It Did Not Happen Overnight. The Last Of Human Freedoms, To Choose One's Attitude In Any Given Set Of Circumstances, Is To Choose One's Own Way.

When We Are No Longer Able To Change A Situation - We Are Challenged To Change Ourselves.

. . . Nothing Could Touch The Strength Of My Love, And The Thoughts Of My Beloved. Had I Known Then That My Wife Was Dead, I Think That I Still Would Have Given Myself, Undisturbed By That Knowledge, To The Contemplation Of That Image, And That My Mental Conversation With Her Would Have Been Just As Vivid And Just As Satisfying. "set Me Like A Seal Upon Thy Heart, Love Is As Strong As Death."

Each Of Us Carries A Unique Spark Of The Divine, And Each Of Us Is Also An Inseparable Part Of The Web Of Life.

It Is True That We Can See The Therapist As A Technician Only If We Have First Viewed The Patient As Some Sort Of Machine.

Consider A Movie: It Consists Of Thousands Upon Thousands Of Individual Pictures, And Each Of Them Makes Sense And Carries A Meaning, Yet The Meaning Of The Whole Film Cannot Be Seen Before Its Last Sequence Is Shown. However, We Cannot Understand The Whole Film Without Having First Understood Each Of Its Components, Each Of The Individual Pictures. Isn't It The Same With Life? Doesn't The Final Meaning Of Life, Too, Reveal Itself, It At All, Only At Its End, On The Verge Of Death?

Meaning Of Life

For What Then Matters Is To Bear Witness To The Uniquely Human Potential At Its Best, Which Is To Transform A Personal Tragedy Into A Triumph, To Turn One’s Predicament Into A Human Achievement.

We Dislike Talking About Our Experiences. No Explanations Are Needed For Those Who Have Been Inside, And The Others Will Understand Neither How We Felt Then Nor How We Feel Now.

I Shall Never Forget How I Was Roused One Night By The Groans Of A Fellow Prisoner, Who Threw Himself About In His Sleep, Obviously Having A Horrible Nightmare. Since I Had Always Been Especially Sorry For People Who Suffered From Fearful Dreams Or Deliria, I Wanted To Wake The Poor Man. Suddenly I Drew Back The Hand Which Was Ready To Shake Him, Frightened At The Thing I Was About To Do. At That Moment I Became Intensely Conscious Of The Fact That No Dream, No Matter How Horrible, Could Be As Bad As The Reality Of The Camp Which Surrounded Us, And To Which I Was About To Recall Him.

No One Can Take Away My Freedom To Choose How I Will React.

Freedom To Choose

Man's Search For Meaning Is The Primary Motivation In His Life And Not A "secondary Rationalization" Of Instinctual Drives. This Meaning Is Unique And Specific In That It Must And Can Be Fulfilled By Him Alone; Only Then Does It Achieve A Significance Which Will Satisfy His Own Will To Meaning.

Sports Allow Men To Build Up Situations Of Emergency. What He Then Demands Of Himself Is Unnecessary Achievement - And Unnecessary Sacrifice. He Artificially Creates The Tension That He Has Been Spared By Affluent Society.

The Meaning Of My Life Is To Help Others Find Meaning In Theirs.

Love Is The Ultimate And The Highest Goal To Which Man Can Aspire.

Such A Value System Might Be Responsible For The Fact That The Burden Of Unavoidable Unhappiness Is Increased By Unhappiness About Being Unhappy.

If There Is Meaning In Life At All, Then There Must Be A Meaning In Suffering. Suffering Is An Ineradicable Part Of Life, Even As Fate And Death. Without Suffering And Death Human Life Cannot Be Complete.

Suffering And Death

Meaning Of Life

Because Of Social Pressure, Individualism Is Rejected By Most People In Favor Of Conformity. Thus The Individual Relies Mainly Upon The Actions Of Others And Neglects The Meaning Of His Own Personal Life. Hence He Sees His Own Life As Meaningless And Falls Into The “existential Vacuum” Feeling Inner Void. Progressive Automation Causes Increasing Alcoholism, Juvenile Delinquency, And Suicide.

...to Think Of Ourselves As Those Who Were Being Questioned By Life-daily And Hourly. Our Answer Must Consist, Not In Talk And Meditation, But In Right Action And In Right Conduct.

[speaking Of His Experience In A Concentration Camp:] As We Said Before, Any Attempt To Restore A Man's Inner Strength In The Camp Had First To Succeed In Showing Him Some Future Goal...woe To Him Who Saw No More Sense In His Life, No Aim, No Purpose, And Therefore No Point In Carrying On. He Was Soon Lost.

Most Men In A Concentration Camp Believed That The Real Opportunities Of Life Had Passed. Yet, In Reality, There Was An Opportunity And A Challenge. One Could Make A Victory Of Those Experiences, Turning Life Into An Inner Triumph, Or One Could Ignore The Challenge And Simply Vegetate, As Did A Majority Of The Prisoners.

Happiness Cannot Be Attained By Wanting To Be Happy - It Must Come As The Unintended Consequence Of Working For A Goal Greater Than Oneself.

Unintended Consequences

Thus, Human Existence-at Least As Long As It Has Not Been Neurotically Distorted-is Always Directed To Something, Or Someone, Other Than Itself, Be It A Meaning To Fulfill Or Another Human Being To Encounter Lovingly.

Happiness Cannot Be Pursued; It Must Ensue.

Stimulus And Response

Mans Search For Meaning

And I Quoted From Nietzsche: That Which Does Not Kill Me, Makes Me Stronger.

It Isn't The Past Which Holds Us Back, It's The Future; And How We Undermine It, Today.

The Crowning Experience Of All, For The Homecoming Man, Is The Wonderful Feeling That, After All He Has Suffered, There Is Nothing He Need Fear Anymore—except His God.

But My Mind Clung To My Wife's Image, Imagining It With An Uncanny Acuteness. I Heard Her Answering Me, Saw Her Smile, Her Frank And Encouraging Look. Real Or Not, Her Look Then Was More Luminous Than The Sun Which Was Beginning To Rise.

One Should Not Search For An Abstract Meaning Of Life ... Life Can Be Made Meaningful In A Threefold Way: First, Through What We Give To Life ... Second, By What We Take From The World ... Third, Through The Stand We Take Toward A Fate We No Longer Can Change.

If Architects Want To Strengthen A Decrepit Arch, They Increase The Load Which Is Laid Upon It, For Thereby The Parts Are Joined More Firmly Together. So If Therapists Wish To Foster Their Patients' Mental Health, They Should Not Be Afraid To Increase That Load Through A Reorientation Toward The Meaning Of One's Life.

Inspirational Life

Man Is Not Fully Conditioned And Determined But Rather Determines Himself Whether He Gives In To Conditions Or Stands Up To Them.

Man Does Not Simply Exist But Always Decides What His Existence Will Be, What He Will Become The Next Moment. By The Same Token, Every Human Being Has The Freedom To Change At Any Instant.

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Warren E. Burger

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