Quotes About Fulfillment

Happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs

It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.

no importa lo que esperamos de la vida, sino que importa lo que la vida espera de nosotros.

The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

People have enough to live by but nothing to live for.

Un hombre que se vuelve consciente de su responsabilidad ante quien lo aguarda con todo su corazón, o ante una obra por terminar, nunca será capaz de tirar su vida por la borda. Conoce el porqué de su existencia y podrá soportar casi cualquier cómo.

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual

Niego tajantemente que la búsqueda de un sentido, o la duda de si existe ese sentido, proceda o sea el resultado de una enfermedad. La frustración existencial en sí misma no es patológica ni patogénica.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw his life away.

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. 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 of life in a general way.

Seorang manusia yang menyadari tanggung jawabnya terhadap manusia lain yang menunggunya dengan kasih sayang, atau tanggung jawabnya terhadap pekerjaan yang belum selesai, tidak akan pernah bisa mengabaikan hidupnya. Dia tahu "mengapa" ia hidup, dan akan mampu menghadapi "bagaimana" dalam bentuk apa pun.

vivir significa asumir la responsabilidad de encontrar la respuesta correcta a las cuestiones que la vida plantea, cumpliendo la obligación que nos asigna.

Don't aim at success ? the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Being human means always being directed toward something other than oneself. [...] Human existence is not characterized by self-actualization but rather by what I call self-transcendence—pointing beyond itself.

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

An active life serves the purpose of giving man the opportunity  to realize values in creative work

There are two main features and traits which characterize and constitute human existence. The first is self-transcendence—the fact that man is always reaching beyond himself, reaching out for meaning to fulfill, for other beings to encounter. The second is self-detachment, the intrinsically human capacity to rise above the level of somatic and psychic data, above the plane within which an animal being moves and to which an animal being is bound.

Just as the boomerang returns to the hunter who has thrown it, only if it has missed its target, man returns to himself, reflects upon himself and becomes over-concerned with self-interpretation only when he has missed his mission, and has been frustrated in his search for meaning.

But ultimately man can actualize himself only by fulfilling a meaning out there in the world rather than within himself so that self-actualization becomes an effect of "self-transcendence." Being human means relating and being directed to something or someone other than oneself.

Even if you don't expect anything from life, doesn't life expect something from you?

Under the same conditions, those who were oriented toward the future, toward a meaning that waited to be fulfilled—these persons were more likely to survive. Nardini and Lifton, two American military psychiatrists

What is actually man's concern is not to fulfill himself or to actualize himself but to fulfill meaning and to realize value. And only to the extent to which he fulfills concrete and personal meaning of his own existence will he also fulfill himself. Self-fulfillment occurs by itself; not through intention but as effect.

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to be happy. But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to be happy. [...] If you want anyone to laugh you have to provide him with a reason, e.g., you have to tell him a joke.