
Man's Search for Meaning

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.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
Beautiful passage
If someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevski’s statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, “Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how.”
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
I ran out of the hut and told my friend that I could not go with him. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
Both used the typical argument —they had nothing more to expect from life. In both cases it was a question of getting them to realize that life was still expecting something from them; something in the future was expected of them. We found, in fact, that for the one it was his child whom he adored and who was waiting for him in a foreign country.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
Insofar as the feeling of meaninglessness is concerned, however, we should not overlook and forget that, per se, it is not a matter of pathology; rather than being the sign and symptom of a neurosis, it is, I would say, the proof of one’s humanness.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.
Viktor E. Frankl • Man's Search for Meaning
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.