by Chris Campbell
Laissez Faire Books
“Everything can be taken from a man,” Viktor Frankl wrote in his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning, “but one thing: the last of human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Frankl, you may know, was an Austrian psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust. Although he is, in some respects, a figure mired in controversy, he has touched on some of the most profound insights on human liberty I’ve come across. I’ll share a few of them in a moment.
First, here’s the 10,000-foot view.
Frankl’s book, Man’s Search For Meaning, tells the story of how meaning and purpose gave him and his fellow survivors the will to stay alive in such horrible circumstances.