Derry > Derry's Quotes

“It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore—except his God.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl

“As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”
― Viktor Emil Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“History, Stephen said, is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Shakespeare is the happy hunting ground of all minds that have lost their balance.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“The supreme question about a work of art is out of how deep a life does it spring.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Mr Leopold Bloom ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes. Most of all he liked grilled mutton kidneys which gave to his palate a fine tang of faintly scented urine.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“To learn one must be humble. But life is the great teacher.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“It is as painful perhaps to be awakened from a vision as to be born.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Let my country die for me.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“Know all men, he said, time's ruins build eternity's mansions.”
― James Joyce, Ulysses

“I cannot be an optimist but I am a prisoner of hope.”
― Cornel West

“Nihilism is a natural consequence of a culture (or civilization) ruled and regulated by categories that mask manipulation, mastery and domination of peoples and nature.”
― Cornel West, Cornel West Reader

“In a time in which Communist regimes have been rightfully discredited and yet alternatives to neoliberal capitalist societies are unwisely dismissed, I defend the fundamental claim of Marxist theory: there must be countervailing forces that defend people's needs against the brutality of profit driven capitalism.”
― Cornel West, Cornel West Reader

“You must let suffering speak, if you want to hear the truth”
― Cornell West

“What is to give light must endure burning.”
― Victor Frankl

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”
― Viktor Frankl

“Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.”
― Victor Frankl

“silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation.”
― Rumi

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi

“There is a candle in your heart, ready to be kindled.
There is a void in your soul, ready to be filled.
You feel it, don't you?”
― Mawlana Jalal-al-Din Rumi