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The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

Viktor E. Frankl

Ultimately, we are not subject to the conditions that confront us; rather, these conditions are subject to our decision … we must decide whether we will face up or give in, whether or not we will let ourselves be determined by the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Confront Decision Faces Giving
We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents…Sometimes the ‘unfinisheds’ are among the most beautiful symphonies.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Beautiful Death Symphony
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Life Man Meaning Search Suffering
Man’s search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chiefs Men Motivation
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Encounters Existentialism Suffering
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Asking Life Man Meaning Search
It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Meaning Men Search
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Carrying Purpose Woe
Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Effort Men Spiritual
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Change Happiness Life
The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Away Choose One Thing Way
Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Meaning Men Search World
As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Bears Men Neurology
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chance Life Second Time
Our generation is realistic, for 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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Generation Men Our Prayer
Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Challenges Country Fate Inspirational People Victim

The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

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The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

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