A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.

At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.

But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.

When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.

The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.

In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.

As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.

If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.

Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.

Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.

View life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.

God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies

Despair is suffering without meaning.

Ultimate freedom is a man's right to choose his attitude.

The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.

The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.

Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing

To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

This is the core of the human spirit ... If we can find something to live for - if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives - even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.

The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.

Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.

We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.

Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.

Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation.

Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality

Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be

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.

You don't create your mission in life - you detect it.

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

If we take a man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be.

It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.

Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.

There are two races of men in this world but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.

Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.

Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!

Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.

What is to give light must endure burning.

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.

The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.

Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.