“What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.”

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

Last update March 18, 2023. History

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Viktor E. Frankl 64
Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust surviv… 1905–1997

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“The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning.”

Stanley Kubrick (1928–1999) American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and editor

Quoted in Halliwell's Filmgoer's and Video Viewer's Companion (1988), p. 403. Seems that this sentence first appeared in an 1968 Playboy Interview "Stanley Kubrick on Mortality, the Fear of Flying, and the Purpose of Existence: 1968 Playboy Interview" http://www.brainpickings.org/2012/07/26/stanley-kubrick-playboy-interview/
Context: The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. If it can be written or thought, it can be filmed.

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“Life becomes meaningful and all activities are purposeful only on the basis of faith in the enduring reality.”

Meher Baba (1894–1969) Indian mystic

Message at Pickfair, Beverly Hills, California (1 June 1932), as quoted in Life Is A Jest (1974) edited by A. K. Hajra <!-- or 6 January? 1932 Me p100-101 -->
General sources
Context: Life becomes meaningful and all activities are purposeful only on the basis of faith in the enduring reality. … The greatest romance possible in life is to discover this Eternal Reality in the midst of infinite change. Once, one has experienced this, one sees oneself in everything that lives, one recognises all of life as his life, everybody's interests as his own. One is no longer bound by habits of the past, no longer swayed by the hopes of the future — One lives in and enjoys each present moment to the full. There is no greater romance in life than this adventure in realization.

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