Quotes About Hope

rather to see a meaning in his life. That is why man is even ready to suffer, on the condition, to be sure, that his suffering has a

Et lux in tenebris lucet

We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

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 difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

I said that each of us had to ask himself what irreplaceable losses he had suffered up to then. I speculated that for most of them these losses had really been few. Whoever was still alive had reason for hope. Health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, position in society - all these were things that could be achieved again or restored.

I know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible." Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist that meaning is available in spite of—nay, even through—suffering, provided, as noted in Part Two of this book, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic.

the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

Whatever we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future. And

de Nietzsche: «Quien tiene un porqué para vivir puede soportar casi cualquier cómo». Yo veo en esas palabras un motor válido para la psicoterapia. Los campos de concentración nazis dan fe de que los prisioneros más aptos para la supervivencia fueron los que se sabían esperados

We have come to recognize that this is a profoundly religious book. It insists that life is meaningful and that we must learn to see life as meaningful despite our circumstances. It emphasizes that there is an ultimate purpose to life.

verja del campo y un flamante camión, de color aluminio

I sensed my spirit piercing through the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and from somewhere I heard a victorious "Yes" in answer to my question of the existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria. "Et lux in tenebris lucet"—and the light shineth in the darkness

A pesar del primitivismo físico y mental imperantes a la fuerza, en la vida del campo de concentración aún era posible desarrollar una profunda vida espiritual.

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation

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. HAROLD S. KUSHNER

Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future

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

Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for! Perhaps he boarded a trolley, traveled out to the home which he had seen for years in his mind, and only in his mind, and pressed the bell, just as he has longed to do in thousands of dreams, only to find that the person who should open the door was not there, and would never be there again.

suffering is not necessary to find meaning, only that "meaning is possible in spite of suffering.

minus hair; all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence. What else remained for us as a material link with our former lives? For me there were my glasses and my belt; the latter I had to exchange later on for a piece of bread.

this book is less about his travails, what he suffered and lost, than it is about the sources of his strength to survive.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for!