Summary Of Man's Search For Meaning Quotes

In fact, suffering provides powerful opportunities to add deeper meaning to life, while also presenting the opportunity to forget one’s dignity and character. While only few people in life are truly capable of reaching such high moral standards, everyone is given ample opportunity. Even for the terminally ill, who have what appears to be nothing left to live for, there is honor and dignity in accepting their fate and destiny with poise. While this idea is easily understood, it is of course incredibly difficult in practice, especially in such extreme conditions as a concentration camp.

the idea that no one has the right to do wrong—no matter what wrong has been done to them.

love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which a man can aspire” and that “the salvation of man is through love and in love.” This was a truly transformative thought for Frankl, who realized that even with everything else stripped from his life, a man can endure suffering in an honorable way through loving contemplation of the image he carried of his wife.

it becomes clear that what determined the character of each prisoner was not the result of camp influences alone, but rather the result of an inner decision.

everything in camp life tested their character. They were reduced to objects for extermination and felt more like sheep whose only concerns were for food and avoiding punishments.

more than any other quality of humanity, humor allows one to rise above any situation.

as a survivor of four different concentration camps, he has also witnessed man’s ability to bear and defy even the worst conditions imaginable.

people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

anticipatory anxiety. It is a fear of future possibilities

He immediately thought that camp life might not be so bad. In psychiatry, this is known as “delusion of reprieve,” and the new prisoners clung to the hope that it would not be so bad.

It is the spiritual freedom to choose what becomes of us mentally and spiritually that makes life meaningful.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

although arguably the most difficult process, also characterizes the unique potential in humanity: to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph of human achievement

Live as if you were living already for the second time and is if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!