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.”

Ein Mensch, der sich dieser Verantwortung bewußt geworden ist, die er gegenüber dem auf ihn wartenden Werk oder einem auf ihn wartenden liebenden Menschen hat, ein solcher Mensch wird nie imstande sein, sein Leben hinzuwerfen. Er weiß eben um das »Warum« seines Daseins - und wird daher auch fast jedes »Wie« zu ertragen vermögen.

Viktor Frankl

Man's Search for Meaning

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More information about this quote

Topic

Purpose of life Meaning of life

Author

Viktor Frankl

Source

Man's Search for Meaning

Genre

Autobiography and memoir

Language

German

Time

1946 1940s 20th century

Occupation

Holocaust survivor Psychiatrist Writer

From

Austria Europe

Authentication Score 3

Original Citation

Frankl, Victor. …trotzdem Ja zum Leben sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager [Man's Search for Meaning: An Introduction to Logotherapy]. Verlag für Jugend und Volk, 1946.

Current Citation

Frankl, Victor. Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press, 2006.

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Related Quotes

Below are one or more quotes that share at least one tag with the quote at the top of the page

Another quote from the 1940s

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

Winston Churchill

More information about this quote
Topic
World War II
Speaker
Winston Churchill
Source
The Few
Medium
Speech
Genre
Political speech
Language
English
Time
1940 1940s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Churchill, Winston. "The Few." House of Commons meeting. 20 Aug. 1940, The Palace of Westminster, London, England, UK. Address.

Current Citation

Churchill, Winston. "The Battle of Britain: 'The Few'." Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Great Speeches, edited by David Cannadine. Penguin Classics, 2007.

Another quote about Purpose of life

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.

Henry David Thoreau

Walden

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More information about this quote
Topic
Simple living Introspection Life lessons Purpose of life

Author

Henry David Thoreau
Source
Where I Lived, And What I Lived For Walden
Genre
Autobiography and memoir
Language
English
Time
1854 1850s 19th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden; or, Life in the Woods. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1854.

Current Citation

Thoreau, Henry David. "Where I Lived, And What I Lived For." Walden and Civil Disobedience. Signet, 2012.

Another quote from 1946

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

Winston Churchill

More information about this quote
Topic
Cold War Soviet Union
Speaker
Winston Churchill
Source
Sinews of Peace
Medium
Speech
Genre
Political speech
Statement Type
Metaphor, analogy and simile
Language
English
Time
1946 1940s 20th century
Authentication Score 3
Original Citation

Churchill, Winston. "Sinews of Peace." 5 Mar. 1946, Westminster College, Fulton, MO, USA. Speech.

Current Citation

Churchill, Winston. "The Soviet Danger: The Iron Curtain." Blood, Toil, Tears and Sweat: The Great Speeches, edited by David Cannadine. Penguin Classics, 2007.

Another quote originally in German

If a man has been his mother's undisputed darling he retains throughout life the triumphant feeling, the confidence in success, which not seldom brings actual success with it.

Sigmund Freud

More information about this quote
Topic
Effects of childhood Mothers and sons

Author

Sigmund Freud
Genre
Psychological literature
Language
German
Time
1917 1910s 20th century
Authentication Score 1
Original Citation

Freud, Sigmund. "Eine Kindheitserinnerung aus 'Dichtung und Wahrheit [A Childhood Recollection from 'Dichtung und Warheit [Poetry and Truth].'" Zeitschrift für Anwendung der Psychoanalyse auf die Geisteswissenschaften [Journal of the Application of Psychoanalysis to the Humanities]. Vol. 5, 1917, pp. 49–57.

Current Citation

Freud, Sigmund. "A Childhood Recollection from 'Dichtung Und Wahrheit.'" The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud: An Infantile Neurosis and Other Works, translated by James Strachey. Vol. 17, Vintage, 2001.