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Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself - be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter.
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Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
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In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
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I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.
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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.
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A human being is a deciding being.
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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.
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We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.
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For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
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Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
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Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
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To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'