Quotes About Meaning

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.

way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

meaning can be found not only in work but also in love.

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. 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. Questions

It was in the nature of this sacrifice that it should appear to be pointless in the normal world, the world of material success.

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

De modo que cada hombre, incluso en condiciones trágicas, puede decidir quién quiere ser —espiritual y mentalmente— y conservar su dignidad humana.

must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. For what

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. 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.

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

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.

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.

Logotherapy tries to make the patient fully aware of his own responsibleness

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

Tell me Master, what is the best move in the world?

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

just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.

I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy

The salvation of man is through love and in love. I

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

is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain

meaning is possible even in spite of suffering—provided, certainly, that the suffering is unavoidable.