It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how

Success is total self-acceptance.

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

A life of short duration...could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.