when we are no longer able to change a
situation we are challenged to change
ourselves everything could 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 but there was no
need to be ashamed of Tears for tears
bore witness that a man had the greatest
of courage the courage to suffer
man is that being who invented the gas
chambers of Auschwitz however he's also
that being who entered those chambers
upright with the Lord's Prayer or the
Shema Israel on his lips what is to give
light must endure burning when I was
taken to the concentration camp of
Auschwitz a manuscript of mine ready for
publication was confiscated certainly my
deep desire to write this manuscript
anew helped me to survive the rigors of
the camps I was in
in some ways suffering ceases to be
suffering at the moment it finds a
meaning life is never made unbearable by
circumstances only by lack of meaning
and purpose
for success like happiness cannot be
pursued it must ensue and it only does
so as the unintended side effect of
one's personal dedication to a cause
greater than oneself
so live as if you were living already
for the second time and as if you had
acted the first time as wrongly as you
are about to act now
the salvation of man is through love and
in love
no man should judge unless he asks
himself in absolute honesty whether in a
similar situation he might not have done
the same thing ultimately man should not
ask what the meaning of his life is but
rather must recognize that it is he who
is asked in a word each man is
questioned by life and he can only
answer to life by answering for his own
life to life he can only respond by
being responsible
if there is any meaning in life at all
then there must be meaning in suffering
everyone has his own specific vocation
or mission in life everyone must carry
out a concrete assignment the demand
fulfilment therein he cannot be replaced
nor can his life be repeated
thus everyone's task is unique as his
specific opportunity to implement it
the more one forgets himself by giving
himself to a cause to serve or another
person to love the more human he is and
the more he actualizes himself I do not
forget any good deed done to me and I do
not carry a grudge for a bad one
a human being is a deciding Being
between stimulus and response there is a
space in that space is our power to
choose our response in our response lies
our growth and our freedom for the world
is in a bad state but everything will
become still worse unless each of us
does his best
the one thing you can take away from me
is the way I choose to respond to what
you do to me
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