Quotes About Endurance

Nietzsche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners

What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you'. Not only our experiences, by all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

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

If someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevski's statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, "Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how." But our psychological investigations have not taken us that far yet; neither had we prisoners reached that point. We were still in the first phase of our psychological reactions.

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

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.

the priority stays with creatively changing the situation that causes us to suffer. But the superiority goes to the "know-how to suffer," if need be.

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

When we are no longer able to change a situation

Un renombrado investigador en psicología ha manifestado que la reclusión en un campo de concentración podía denominarse «vida provisional». En virtud de nuestra experiencia, completaríamos esa expresión añadiendo que es una «vida provisional de duración desconocida».

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way —an honorable way—in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work. If you even limp, because, let us say, you have a small blister on your heel, and an SS man spots this, he will wave you aside and the next day you are sure to be gassed.

Nietzsche: "Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.

What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you

The sufferers, the dying and the dead, became such commonplace sights to him after a few weeks of camp life that they could not move him any more.

He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how.

As we said before, any attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal. Nietzsche's words, "He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how," could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic and psychohygienic efforts regarding prisoners.

Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how.

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.

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. After all, we still had all our bones intact.

Was Du erlebst, kann keine Macht der Welt Dir rauben. " (What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.)

No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.

I said that someone looks down on each of us in difficult hours — a friend, a wife, somebody alive or dead, or a God — and he would not expect us to disappoint him. He would hope to find us suffering proudly — not miserably — knowing how to die.