Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
The last freedom
Viktor Frankl was a psychiatrist in Vienna. In 1942 he was sent to the camps with his wife, his parents, and his brother. He was the only one who came back. The manuscript of his life's work was taken from him on the first day.
He spent the next three years watching which prisoners survived, and it was not the strongest. It was the ones who still had something to face toward. A wife they believed was alive. A book they meant to rewrite. A child they had to get back to.
He was not being inspiring when he wrote this line. He was reporting. Not everything can be chosen. But what it is for, always.