Quotes About Existence

But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to "be happy." Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.

He who knows the 'Why' for his existence is able to bear almost any 'How'.

De modo que la logoterapia considera que la esencia de la existencia consiste en la capacidad del ser humano para responder responsablemente a las demandas que la vida le plantea en cada situación particular.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.

There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

Las palabras de Nietzsche «quien tiene un porqué para vivir puede soportar casi cualquier cómo» podrían ser la motivación de todos los esfuerzos psicohigiénicos y psicoterapéuticos de los prisioneros.

Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

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 away his life. He knows the why for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any how.

Hay mucha sabiduría en las palabras de Nietzsche: «Quien tiene un porqué para vivir puede soportar casi cualquier cómo».

And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man's world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?

Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence

la de la apatía generalizada que lo llevaba a una especie de muerte emocional.

De esa observación dedujo que no es el sufrimiento en sí mismo el que madura o enturbia al hombre, es el hombre el que da sentido al sufrimiento. Hasta tal punto resulta esencial la postura del hombre que Frankl le arrancó al Lager una gran lección existencial: «El sufrimiento, en cierto modo, deja de ser sufrimiento cuando encuentra un sentido...».

Why to live for enabled them to bear the How.

Ser hombre implica dirigirse hacia algo o alguien distinto de uno mismo, bien sea para realizar un valor, bien para alcanzar un sentido o para encontrar a otro ser humano.

He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.

Tension is not something to be avoided indiscriminately. Man does not need homeostasis at any cost, but rather a sound amount of tension such as that which is aroused by the demanding quality inherent in the meaning for human existence.

man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

through a reorientation toward the meaning

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.

A man counted only because he had a prison number. One literally became a number: dead or alive—that was unimportant; the life of a "number" was completely irrelevant.

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering

each situation in life represents a challenge to man and presents a problem for him to solve, the question of the meaning of life may actually be reversed. Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.

By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system.