Highlights:
“The truth (is) that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire… The salvation of man is through love and in love.” - pg. 37
“I told my comrades (who lay motionless, although occasionally a sigh could be heard) that human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering, privation, and death.” - pg. 83
“The rift dividing good and evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss which is laid open by the concentration camp. ” - pg. 87
“Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration.” - pg. 102
“…Mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being.” - pg. 105
“For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day, and from hour to hour.” -pg. 108
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is as unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” - pg. 109
“The more one forgets 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.” - pg. 110-111
”Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality… By this love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” - pg. 100-111 ^quote9
“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” - pg. 113
“Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man’s world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?” - pg. 118
“…The only really transitory aspects of life are the potentialities; but as soon as they are actualized, they are rendered realities at that very moment; they are saved and delivered into the past, wherein they are rescued and preserved from transitoriness.” - pg. 120
“Man constantly makes his choice concerning the mass of present potentialities; which of these will be condemned to nonbeing and which will be actualized? Which choice will be made an actuality once and forever, an immortal ‘footprint in the sands of time’? At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.” - pg. 121
“Logotherapy bases its technique called “paradoxical intention” on the twofold fact that fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and that hyper-intention makes impossible that which one wishes…In this approach the phobic patient is invited to intend, even if only for a moment, precisely that which he fears…This procedure consists of a reversal of the patient’s attitude, inasmuch as his fear is replaced by a paradoxical wish. By this treatment, the wind is taken out of the sails of his anxiety.” - pg. 124
“It is not the neurotic’s self-concern, whether pity or contempt, which breaks the circle formation; the cue to cure is self-transcendence!” - pg. 129
“Every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age needs its own psychotherapy to cope with it.” - pg. 129
“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.” - pg. 131
“Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.” - pg. 131
“Doesn’t the final meaning of life…reveal itself, if at all, only at its end, on the verge of death? And doesn’t this final meaning, too, depend on whether or not the potential meaning of each single situation has been actualized to the best of the respective individual’s knowledge and belief?” - pg. 144
“People tend to see only the stubble fields of transitoriness but overlook and forget the full granaries of the past into which they have brought the harvest of their lives: the deeds done, the loves loved, and last but not least, the sufferings they have gone through with courage and dignity. From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past—the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized—and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.” - pg. 151
“It is we ourselves who must answer the questions that life asks of us, and to these questions we can respond only by being responsible for our existence.” - pg. 156
“A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness.” - pg. 160