Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.

Freedom |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

This emphasis on responsibleness is reflected in the categorical imperative of logotherapy, which is: 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!

Behavior | Freedom | Martyrs | Mind | Suffering | Witness | Words |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

Choice | Decision | Dignity | Freedom | Man | Opportunity |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

Change | Existence | Freedom | Will |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

Control | Freedom | Will |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.

Change | Freedom |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.

Freedom | Man |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

It is our responsibility to look for meaning in life, even in the darkest times, and whatever the circumstances we always have a vestige of free will.

Freedom |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

Behavior | Dignity | Freedom | Man | Martyrs | Suffering | Witness |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

Man is originally characterized by his search for meaning rather than his search for himself. The more he forgets himself—giving himself to a cause or another person—the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself.

Change | Existence | Freedom | Future | Individual | Man | Will |

Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl

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.

Behavior | Freedom | Life | Life | Martyrs | Mind | Suffering | Witness | Words |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

All are equal in birth and in death. Differences arise only during the interval. The Emperor and the beggar are both born naked; they sleep equally silently; they bow out without even leaving their new address. Then how can their reality be different? There can be no doubt on this score. All are basically the same.

Achievement | Adventure | Anxiety | Anxiety | Cruelty | Cruelty |

Atharva Veda, or Atharvaveda

Accepting the Command of the Lord's Will, I have found total peace; the home of suffering has been destroyed.

Deeds | Freedom | Good | Health | Deeds |

Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.

I discover that hardly a week passes that someone does not start a new cult, or revive an old one; if I had a hundred life-times I could not know all the creeds and ceremonies, the services and rituals, the litanies and liturgies, the hymns, anthems and offertories of Bootstrap-lifting.

Control | Freedom | Mind | Opinion | People | Present | Problems | Race |

Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

Socrates said, “The misuse of language induces evil in the soul.” He wasn’t talking about grammar. To misuse language is to use it the way politicians and advertisers do, for profit, without taking responsibility for what the words mean. Language used as a means to get power or make money goes wrong: it lies. Language used as an end in itself, to sing a poem or tell a story, goes right, goes towards the truth.

Consciousness | Father | Freedom | Justify | Nothing | Solitude | Child |

Upanishads or The Upanishads NULL

Well may he be content to live a hundred years who acts without attachment who works his work with earnestness, but without desire, not yearning for its fruits – he, and he alone. – Isha Upanishad

Death | Desire | Earth | Fulfillment | Heart | Life | Life | Mortal | Time | Will | Work |

Václav Havel

I am referring to respect for the unique human being and his or her liberties and inalienable rights and to the principle that all power derives from the people. I am, in short, referring to the fundamental ideas of modern democracy.

Hope | Joy | Need | Will | Wisdom | Work |

Václav Havel

I felt the need to stir things up... To confront others for a change and force them to deal with a situation that I myself had created.

Freedom | Office | Will |

Václav Havel

Genuine politics -- even politics worthy of the name -- the only politics I am willing to devote myself to -- is simply a matter of serving those around us: serving the community and serving those who will come after us. Its deepest roots are moral because it is a responsibility expressed through action, to and for the whole.

Association | Freedom of speech | Freedom | Speech | Association |

Václav Havel

When the internal crisis of the totalitarian system grows so deep that it becomes clear to everyone, and when more and more people learn to speak their own language and reject the hollow, mendacious language of the powers that be, it means that freedom is remarkably close, if not directly within reach

Freedom | Truth |