“Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.”

What is to give light must endure burning.

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

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

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

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

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.

You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.

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

To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment.

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

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.

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.

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

Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all.

Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, we are always free to choose our thoughts.

If something stands between you and your success – move it. Never be denied.

Franco will bring the army from Castille. The ambassador will complain, causing a schism. Rivera’s men will be part of the force. The great man will be denied entry to the gulf.

Should they whisper false of you, Never trouble to deny; Should the words they say be true, Weep and storm and say they lie.

We are ever striving after what is forbidden, and coveting what is denied us.

If the essential core of the person is denied or suppressed, he gets sick sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in subtle ways, sometimes immediately, sometimes later.

That we live in a post-truth society today, and that we don’t care, that we have lost empathy. We have stopped caring for each other in a way. We have stopped thinking long-term and sustainable. And that’s something that goes much deeper than just climate crisis deniers.

But what then am I? A thing that thinks. What is that? A thing that doubts, understand, affirms, denies, wills, refuses, and that also imagines and senses.

Rarely affirm, seldom deny, always distinguish.