Quotes About Existence

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth.

focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning.

Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives.

plantea. Cuando un hombre descubre que su destino es sufrir, ha de aceptar ese sufrimiento, porque ese sufrimiento se convierte en su única y peculiar tarea. Es más, ese sufrimiento le otorga el carácter de persona única e irrepetible en el universo.

A human being, it is true, is a finite being. However, to the extent to which he understands his finiteness, he also overcomes it.

psychogenic neuroses. Noögenic neuroses have their origin not in the psychological but rather in the "noölogical" (from the Greek noös meaning mind) dimension of human existence. This is another logotherapeutic term which denotes anything pertaining to the specifically human dimension.

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.

They lack the awareness of a meaning worth living for. They are haunted by the experience of their inner emptiness, a void within themselves; they are caught in that situation which I have called the "existential vacuum.

It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

la verdadera autorrealización sólo es el efecto profundo del cumplimiento acabado del sentido de la vida.

I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

El hombre que se hace consciente de su responsabilidad ante el ser humano que le espera con todo su afecto o ante una obra inconclusa no podrá nunca tirar su vida por la borda. Conoce el porqué de su existencia y podrá soportar casi cualquier cómo.

I think the meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.

there is also purpose in that life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.

I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the self-transcendence of human existence.

En otras palabras, la vida pregunta por el hombre, cuestiona al hombre, y este contesta de una única manera: respondiendo de su propia vida y con su propia vida. Solo con la responsabilidad personal se puede contestar a la vida. 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.

As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position.

the individual personality, however, remains essentially unpredictable. The basis for any predictions would be represented by biological, psychological or sociological conditions. Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

amor es la meta última y más alta a la que puede aspirar el hombre.

did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly.

This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love. When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility

A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal