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.
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.
And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
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.
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.
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.
To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
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.
Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
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.
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.
For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.
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.
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.
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.
Despair is suffering without meaning.
A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient.