We had to learn...that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us.
. . . nothing could touch the strength of my love, and the thoughts of my beloved. Had I known then that my wife was dead, I think that I still would have given myself, undisturbed by that knowledge, to the contemplation of that image, and that my mental conversation with her would have been just as vivid and just as satisfying. "Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death."
In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.
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.
It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued
...to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.
Man's last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation
Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.
The struggle for existence is a struggle 'for' something; it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.
Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms.
Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.
A man who could not see the end of his"provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.
It is true that we can see the therapist as a technician only if we have first viewed the patient as some sort of machine.
As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
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.
We dislike talking about our experiences. No explanations are needed for those who have been inside, and the others will understand neither how we felt then nor how we feel now.
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