If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.

Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.

No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms.

How can we dare to predict the behavior of man? We may predict the movements of a machine, of an automaton; more than this, we many even try to predict the mechanisms or "dynamisms" of the human psyche as well. But man is more than psyche.

Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.

One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, "How beautiful the world could be.

Despair is suffering without meaning.