The sentence is Allport’s, not Frankl’s. It appears verbatim in the preface Allport wrote for the first English edition of Frankl’s memoir, published as From Death-Camp to Existentialism (Beacon Press, 1959) and reissued as Man’s Search for Meaning: “It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” Allport was summarising Frankl’s argument in his own words — which is why the line rides inside Frankl’s book while never being written by him.
“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering” Gordon W. Allport, preface to Viktor E. Frankl, "From Death-Camp to Existentialism" (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959), later reissued as "Man's Search for Meaning." Commonly misattributed to Frankl himself, and more often to Friedrich Nietzsche.
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Viktor Frankl. Use the credit shown above instead.
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In context
Evoking the world of Gordon W. Allport — American personality psychologist, Harvard University. Theme: "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Minimalist
Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
The preface, not the memoir
Work
Man’s Search for Meaning
Section
Preface, signed GORDON W. ALLPORT
First English edition
From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path to a New Therapy (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959)
Translation
Frankl’s narrative translated from the 1946 German by Ilse Lasch; Allport’s preface was written in English and needs no translation
But these moments of comfort do not establish the will to live unless they help the prisoner make larger sense out of his apparently senseless suffering. It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
…
Allport’s paragraph continues with “If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying,” and closes by noting that Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzsche — the adjacency that almost certainly seeded the Nietzsche credit.
Allport’s preface was first published in 1959 and is well inside the US copyright term — nothing here is public domain. The Beacon Press editions carry a copyright line in Viktor E. Frankl’s name covering 1959, 1962, 1984 and 1992; the short excerpt above is quoted for identification and verification.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
Two wrong names, one real one
This line is credited to two different men who did not write it, and almost never to the man who did.
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The dominant misattributionFriedrich Nietzsche fabricated
Usually in the variant “to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering,” which circulates on quotation sites under Nietzsche’s name — one Goodreads entry alone carries 923 likes ↗. No work of Nietzsche’s contains it; the credit appears to be an artefact of Allport ending the same paragraph by quoting Nietzsche.
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The plausible misattributionViktor E. Frankl wrong speaker
Frankl’s memoir was written in German in 1946 as Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager. When Beacon Press brought it to American readers in 1959 as From Death-Camp to Existentialism, it arrived with a preface by Gordon W. Allport — then one of the most influential psychologists in the United States — whose endorsement was the book’s passport into American psychology. Allport used that preface to compress Frankl’s argument into a single memorable clause, and readers have been quoting the compression ever since.
Frankl did make the underlying claim, in his own words and at greater length: “If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering.” What he never wrote is the tighter, more aphoristic sentence that now circulates under his name — or, more often still, under Nietzsche’s. It is a clean example of how front matter escapes a book: a summariser’s phrasing outruns the author’s own.
Allport was paraphrasing Frankl. The paraphrase is what survived.
Why the Nietzsche credit stuck
Allport’s paragraph ends by noting that Frankl is fond of quoting Nietzsche — “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how.” A reader skimming the page finds an existentialist-sounding aphorism a few lines above a Nietzsche citation, and the two fuse. The variant that dominates search results, “to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering,” is the Nietzsche-credited form.
Nietzsche did write near this territory — on suffering being willed when a meaning for it is shown — but that is a different sentence in a different book, and no Nietzsche text contains the wording in circulation.
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Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1897–1967 · American personality psychologist, Harvard University
Gordon Willard Allport was an American psychologist and a founding figure of personality psychology, on the Harvard faculty from 1930 until his death in 1967 and a former editor of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. He is best known for trait theory and for The Nature of Prejudice. His preface to Viktor Frankl’s concentration-camp memoir did more than any other single piece of writing to introduce logotherapy to American readers — and, unintentionally, produced one of the most-quoted sentences in the self-help canon.
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Cite this
Primary source
Gordon W. Allport, preface to Viktor E. Frankl, From Death-Camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist’s Path to a New Therapy, trans. Ilse Lasch (Boston: Beacon Press, 1959). The same preface is carried in later Beacon Press editions published as Man’s Search for Meaning.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering’?” Last verified 24 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/to-live-is-to-suffer-to-survive-is-to-find-meaning-in-the/