It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.

You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me - and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!

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

If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life.

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

Despair is suffering without meaning.

In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.