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. 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.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future—sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most

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.

I]n the last resort, man should not ask What is the meaning of my life? but should realize that he himself is being questioned. Life is putting its problems to him, and it is up to him to respond to these questions by being responsible; he can only answer to life by answering for his life.

that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from

Nietzsche, "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.

To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: "Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?" There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one's opponent. The same holds for human existence.

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic

far we have shown that the meaning of life always changes, but that it never ceases to be. According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2)

Y es precisamente esta libertad interior la que nadie nos puede arrebatar, la que confiere a la existencia una intención y un sentido.

For us, the meaning of life embraced the wider cycles of life and death, of suffering and of dying.

Kreativan život i život uživanja zabranjeni su mu. No nisu samo stvaranje i uživanje smisleni. Ako život ima smisla, onda ga i patnja mora imati. Patnja je neiskorjenjiv dio života, ?ak u obliku sudbine i smrti. Bez patnje i smrti ljudski život ne može biti potpun.

In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

In other words, life's meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering.

Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor E. Frankl

Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why—an aim—for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence.

el hombre no debería cuestionarse sobre el sentido de la vida, sino comprender que la vida le interroga a él. En otras palabras, la vida pregunta por el hombre, cuestiona al hombre, y éste contesta de una única manera: respondiendo de su propia vida y con su propia vida.

the sudden awareness of afigure on a ground, whereas the perception of meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation.

Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe.

En todo momento el hombre debe decidir, para bien o para mal, cuál será el monumento de su existencia.

What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness

And how does a human being go about finding meaning? As Charlotte Bühler has stated: "All we can do is study the lives of people who seem to have found their answers to the questions of what ultimately human life is about as against those who have not."6