This book is not a simple historical record or confession.
This is a profound insight into human trials, death, and the meaning of life, delivered in a calm tone by someone who has crossed the line between life and death.
Dr. Viktor Frankl, who was imprisoned in the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II, found hope in the midst of tragedy and proved human dignity in the midst of despair.
What message does this leading 20th-century thinker, who discovered the meaning of life despite enduring extreme suffering, offer us today? This book will offer comfort and direction to all who question the meaning of life.

As many as 1,500 people were crammed into a building that resembled a cattle pen, with a capacity of only about 200.
We suffered from cold and hunger.
There was no place to even crouch down, let alone lie down on the floor.
For four days, the only food we received was a five-ounce loaf of bread.
In that situation, I heard the senior inmate in charge of the building haggling with a receptionist over a platinum and diamond tie pin.
--- From "The Delusion of Probation"

I was so excited that I forgot about the third body.
So they moved the body outside and pushed it into a narrow grave they had dug.
The guard accompanying us was a relatively docile man, but he suddenly became very gentle.
He knew the situation had changed and tried to win our favor.
He also prayed along with us at our suggestion to offer a prayer for the deceased before covering the body with dirt.
After so many hours of tension and excitement, our prayers for peace before the bodies of our fellow soldiers were more fervent than any prayers ever offered by human voices.
--- From "The Last Day in the Camp"

I saw pictures taken in a small camp not far from our camp.
That night, friends who believed they were on their way to freedom were loaded onto trucks and taken to the camp.
And there he was burned to death while locked in a barracks.
Even in the photos, we could see the burned bodies of our colleagues here and there.
Then I thought of 'Death in Tehran' again.
--- From "Twisted Fates"

But this alone is enough to prove the following truth:
The truth is that everything can be taken from a human being, but one thing cannot be taken away: the last remaining human freedom: the freedom to decide one's attitude in any given situation and to choose one's own path.
--- From "Human Mental Freedom"

People who regress because they cannot find a goal for the future are absorbed in reminiscing about the past.
--- From "A Temporary Life with No End"

That doesn't mean there was any need to be ashamed of shedding tears.
Because tears mean that the person has tremendous courage, the courage to accept trials.
Very few people realized it.
Some people even confessed with shame that they had cried.
I once asked a colleague who was suffering from edema how he got better.
Then he answered like this.
“I cried so much that I got kicked out of my organization.”
--- From "How many trials must be completed?"

Logotherapy theory views the human effort to find meaning in life as a primal human drive.
This is why I call logotherapy the "will to meaning" as opposed to the pleasure principle (or perhaps the will to pleasure) that Freudians focus on, or the pursuit of power, which Adlerians call the "desire for superiority."
--- From "Basic Concepts of Logotherapy"

If the ordeal is avoidable, the only meaningful human action is to remove the cause of the ordeal, whether psychological, physical, or political.
Enduring unnecessary suffering is not heroic; it is self-abuse.
--- From "The Meaning of Trials"

I saw in the concentration camps, which were living human laboratories and testing grounds, that some people behaved like saints, while others behaved like pigs.
A person has both potentials within him, and which one he chooses depends entirely on his will.
--- From "Psychiatry with a Human Face"

I think of the young people who call themselves the 'future-less' generation.
This is not a phenomenon limited to one country, but a universal phenomenon that occurs all over the world.
It is a well-known fact that it is not cigarettes but drugs that these young people find solace in.
--- From "Optimism in Tragedy"

From this perspective, there is absolutely no reason to feel sorry for older people.
Rather, young people should envy older people.
Of course, it is true that older people have no future and no opportunities.
But they have more than that.
Instead of possibilities for the future, they have realities in the past: potential possibilities they realized, meanings they achieved, values ​​they realized.
And nothing in the world, no one, can take away these assets of the past.

--- From "Optimism in Tragedy"