Quotes about Existence

I never tire of saying that 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. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.

Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence

Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness.

never tire of saying that 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. For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored.

people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

let me make it perfectly clear that in no way is suffering necessary to find meaning.

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future—sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most

Whoever has a why to live can bear almost any how," as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche declared.

that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from

Nietzsche, "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.