Sublime

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 was PROFESSOR OF NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY at the University of Vienna and, for 25 years, head of the Vienna Neurological Policlinic. The Logotherapy/Existential Analysis founded by him is also known as the Third Viennese Direction of Psychotherapy. He held visiting professorships at Harvard University, Stanford, Dallas and Pittsbur

Victor Frankl, Nazi concentration camp survivor, Man’s Search for Meaning: “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 o

At sixteen, Frankl gave his first lecture, “On the Meaning of Life.” At twenty-eight he formed the “Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy.” His core idea: We should not ask what the meaning of life is because it is we who are being asked. Each of us is responsible for finding our own reason to live.

She found purpose in her suffering. Those who have a why for life, said Nietzsche, can put up with 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

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 life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during

It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

Eventually he concluded that even in the worst pain, humans can choose to infuse meaning into their experiences, saying, “what is to give light must endure burning.”