All man's honors to man are small beside the greatest prize to which he may and must aspire - the finding of his soul, his spirit, his divine strength and worth - the knowledge that he can and must live in freedom and dignity - the final realization that life is not a daily dying, not a pointless end, not an ashes-to-ashes and dust-to-dust, but a soaring and blinding gift snatched from eternity.
'The Prize', Irving Wallace, 1964
“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.”
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival.
Between 1942 and 1945 Frankl labored in four different camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished.
Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
Frankl's theory-known as logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.
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