Why Your Existence Matters Profoundly

"If you can't get a miracle, become one."

Born with tetra-amelia syndrome (without arms and legs). Suffered severe bullying, loneliness, and attempted suicide at age 10.

"He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

Survived 4 concentration camps including Auschwitz and Dachau; lost his parents, brother, and pregnant wife in the Holocaust.

"It always seems impossible until it is done."

Imprisoned for 27 years in harsh conditions on Robben Island for demanding equality.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it."

Lost both her sight and hearing at 19 months old due to acute illness, living in complete darkness and isolation.

"Dreams are made possible if you try."

Diagnosed with osteosarcoma at age 18, leading to the amputation of his right leg.

"Pity has no value if it does not reach out a helping hand."

Imprisoned for 10 years by the communist regime, working in the uranium mines of Jáchymov.

"Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."

Persecuted and repeatedly imprisoned for nearly 5 years for defending basic human rights.

"I will seize fate by the throat; it will certainly never wholly conquer me."

Began losing his hearing in his late 20s, becoming completely deaf by his 40s.

"Every child saved with my help is the justification of my existence on this Earth."

Tortured by the Gestapo with both legs and feet broken for running an underground rescue network.

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

Endured extreme poverty, hunger, and gender discrimination, doing experiments in a dilapidated shed.

"However difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. Where there's life, there is hope."

Diagnosed with motor neurone disease (ALS) at 21 and given 2 years to live; eventually lost almost all motor function and speech.

"I want to laugh through tears, to sing songs amid disaster, to hope without hope, to live!"

Battled severe bone tuberculosis from childhood, undergoing painful operations and lifelong chronic pain.

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."

Experienced severe mid-life psychological disorientation and crisis after his split with Freud.

"If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced."

Endured severe depressive episodes, intense poverty, and was misunderstood throughout his entire lifetime.

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments. The best comes from them."

Banned from university and public life due to fascist race laws during WWII.

"To be prepared is half the victory."

Severely wounded in battle, maimed in his left hand, and enslaved in Algiers for 5 years with multiple failed escape attempts.

"The difficult is what takes a little time; the impossible is what takes a little longer."

Survived brutal Arctic winters near the North Pole and witnessed the catastrophic refugee crises after WWI.

"The present is theirs; the future, for which I really worked, is mine."

Suffered nervous breakdowns, severe cholera, cheated out of fortunes, and saw his laboratory burn to the ground.

"Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love."

Born in Skopje, walked into the poorest slums of Calcutta with no money to care for the dying and abandoned.

"Silence is the pause that allows us to hear the truth within."

Faced years of creative paralysis, severe censorship by Soviet authorities, and forced emigration.