Man’s Search For Meaning {favorite quotes part one}

Man’s Search for Meaning is based on a true story written by a survivor of concentration camp in world war 2.

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

“Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”

“He will have to acknowledge the fact that even insuffer ing he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can reliere him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique oppo:-tunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.”

“Fourth, it must be stated that even among the guards there were some who took pity on us. I shall only mention the commander of the camp from which I was liberated. It was found after the liberation-only the camp doctor, a prisoner himself, had known of it previously-that this man had paid no small sum of money from his own pocket in order to purchase medicines for his prisoners from the nearest market town.' But the senior camp warden, a prisoner himself, was harder than any of the SS guards. He beat the other prisoners at every slightest opportunity, while the camp com-mander, to my knowledge, never once lifted his hand against any of us.”

“It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing. Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. The boundaries between groups overlapped and we must not try to simplify matters by saying that these men were angels and those were devils. Certainly, it was a considerable achievement for a guard or foreman to be kind to the prisoners in spite of all the camp's influences, and, on the other hand, the baseness of a prisoner who treated his own companions badly was exceptionally contemptible. Obviously the prisoners found the lack of character in such men especially upsetting, while they were profoundly moved by the smallest kindness received from any of the guards.”

“From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two-the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In this sense, no group is of "pure race" -and therefore one occasionally found a decent fellow among the camp guards.”