Viktor Frankl Quote

In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.

From Death-camp to Existentialism: A Psychiatrist's Path to a New Therapy (ed. 1959)