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

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Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.

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

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... It can be said that they are worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes the life more meaningful and purposeful.

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These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment.

Having been is also kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

Page 82

Which does not kill me, makes me stronger.

We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we have to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us.

"We dislike talking about our experiences. No explanations are needed for those who have been inside, and the others will understand neither how we felt then now how we feel now."

At times, lightning decisions had to be made, decisions which spelled life or death.

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Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worse is still to come, and yet it is over already.

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-- daily and hourly.

It is a peculiarity of a man that he can only live by looking at the future - - sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

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What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being.

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life.

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Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the task which it constantly sets for each individual.

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A prominent Viennese psychiatrist recounts his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp that led to the development of his existentialist approach to psychotherapy. Reissue.

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Personal Development

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Books

A prominent Viennese psychiatrist before the war, Viktor Frankl was uniquely able to observe the way that he and other inmates coped with the experience of being in Auschwitz. He noticed that it was the men who comforted others and who gave away their last piece of bread who survived the longest - and who offered proof that everything can be taken away from us except the ability to choose our attitude in any given set of circumstances. The sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision and not of camp influences alone. Only those who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp's degenerating influence - while those who made a victory of those experiences turned them into an inner triumph. Frankl came to believe that man's deepest desire is to search for meaning and purpose. This outstanding work offers us all a way to transcend suffering and find significance in the art of living.

Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D., was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of Existential Analysis, the "Third Viennese School" of psychotherapy.His book Man's Search for Meaning (first published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism. Originally published in 1946 as Ein Psycholog erlebt das Konzentrationslager) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate and describes his psychotherapeutic method of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most sordid ones, and thus a reason to continue living. He was one of the key figures in existential therapy.

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