Quotes About Freedom

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate. Seen

there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man's nothingbutness, the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to believe anyway, namely, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free.

Frankl would have argued that we are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond.

Freedom, we repeated to ourselves, and yet we could not grasp it. We had said this word so often during all the years we dreamed about it, that it had lost its meaning. Its reality did not penetrate into our consciousness; we could not grasp the fact that freedom was ours.

la libertad interior puede elevar al hombre por encima de un destino adverso

Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after 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.

El hombre no está absolutamente condicionado y determinado, al contrario, es él quien decide si cede ante determinadas circunstancias o si resiste frente a ellas… El hombre no se limita a existir, sino decide cómo será su existencia, en qué se convertirá en el minuto siguiente.

That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining.

ilusión del indulto»; no perdían la esperanza de que serían liberados e imaginaban que aquello iba a terminar bien.

some of the prisoners attempted to find one on their own. 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 recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

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.

Viktor E. Frankl

Mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychological and/or sociological factors. Totally explaining one's crime would be tantamount to explaining away his or her guilt and to seeing in him or her not a free and responsible human being but a machine to be repaired.

Freedom, however, is not the last word. 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.

Freedom, however, is not the last word. 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. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

A human being is not one thing among others - Things determine each other, but Man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes, within the limits of endowment and environment, he has made out of himself.

I bear witness of the inestimable extent to which man, although he is never free from conditions and determinants, is always free to take a stand to whatever he might have to face. Although he may be conditioned and determined, he is never fully determined, he is not pandetermined.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude  in  any given set of circumstances, to  choose one's own way.

There is determinism in the psychological dimension, and freedom in the noological dimension which is the human dimension, the dimension of human phenomena.

Der er et vist mål af frihed til enhver, selv om det kun gælder valget af hårfarve.

Ultimately, man is not subject to the conditions that confront him; rather, these conditions are subject to his decision.

La conciencia del amor propio está tan profundamente arraigada en las cosas más elevadas y más espirituales, que no puede arrancarse ni viviendo en un campo de concentración. ¿Pero cuántos hombres libres, por no hablar de los prisioneros, la poseen?