Meaning in Suffering

"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete." (pg. 76)

One Thing I Dread

"There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings."

Viktor Frankl quoting Fyodor Dostoevsky (pg. 75)

In the Past

"...in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything is irrevocably stored." (Frankl, pg. 124)

Death in Teheran

"A rich and mighty Persian once walked in his garden with one of his servants. The servant cried that he had just encountered Death, who had threatened him. He begged his master to give him his fastest horse so that he could make haste and flee to Teheran, which he could reach that same evening. The master consented and the servant galloped off on the horse. On returning to his house the master himself met Death, and questioned him, 'Why did you terrify and threaten my servant?'

'I did not threaten him; I only showed surprise in still finding him here when I planned to meet him tonight in Teheran,' said Death.'" (Frankl, pg. 66)

***

"Many weeks later we found out that even in those last hours fate had toyed with us few remaining prisoners. We found out just how uncertain human decisions are, especially in matters of life and death. I was confronted with photographs which had been taken in a small camp not far from ours. Our friends who had thought they were travelling to freedom that night had been taken in the trucks to this camp, and there they were locked in the huts and burned to death. Their partially charred bodies were recognizable on the photographs. I thought again of Death in Teheran." (Frankl, pg. 71)

Success and Happiness

"Don't aim at success -- the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run -- in the long run, I say! -- success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it."

Life Holds a Potential Meaning

"...life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable one."

The Misery of Our Time

"...I do not at all see in the bestseller status of my book an achievement and accomplishment on my part, but rather an expression of the misery of our time..."