Man's Search for Meaning:  by Viktor Frankl

• In spite of all the enforced physical and mental primitiveness of the life in a concentration camp it was possible for spiritual life to deepen. Sensitive people who were used to a rich intellectual life may have suffered much pain (they were often of a delicate constitution), but the damage to their inner selves was less. They were able to retreat from their terrible surroundings to a life of inner riches and spiritual freedom
• The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living. To draw an analogy; a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas.  If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber.  Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little.  Therefore the size of human suffering is absolutely relative.
• The experience of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed.  Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.
• Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms – to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
• In the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.
• Be worthy of your sufferings; this makes life meaningful and purposeful.
• Realize the value in creative work
• Obtain fulfillment in experiencing beauty, art and nature.
• There is also meaning in suffering. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
• It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us – right action and right conduct.
• A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”