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.
They must not lose hope but should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning. I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours – a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God – and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly – not miserably – knowing how to die.
At such a moment it is not the physical pain which hurts the most, it is the mental agony caused by injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little.
Man is that being which invented the gas chambers; but he is at the same time that being which walked with head held high into these very same gas chambers, the Lord’s Prayer or the Jewish prayer for the dead on his lips.
I mentioned earlier how everything that was not connected with the immediate task of keeping oneself and one’s closest friends alive lost its value.
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.
Times of transition are difficult times, times of crisis. But in these times of crisis, with their woes, a new time is already being born.
And so we should not only remember the dead, but also forgive the living. Just as we reach out our hand to the dead, across all graves, so we reach out to the living – across all hatred. And when we say: Honored be the dead, so we should add: And peace to all the living who are of goodwill.
E de-a dreptul ciudat ca, uneori, o lovitura care nici macar nu lasa vreo urma poate durea mai tare decat una care lasa urme.
Most important, he realized that, no matter what happened, he retained the freedom to choose how to respond to his suffering.
But the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. By then his feelings were blunted, and he watched unmoved.
My mind still clung to the image of my wife. A thought crossed my mind: I didn’t even know if she were still alive. I knew only one thing – which I have learned well by now: Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his 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.
The destiny a person suffers therefore has a twofold meaning: to be shaped where possible, and to be endured where necessary.
Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth.
Lessing who once said, “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.
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.
Frankl wondered whether “there may be such a thing as autobibliotherapy – healing through reading.” Frankl’s.
I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.
Is there no spiritual freedom in regard to behavior and reaction to any given surroundings? Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors – be they of a biological, psychological or sociological nature?