Viktor E. Frankl
41 quotes
Biography
Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, philosopher, and Holocaust survivor, who founded logotherapy, a school of psychotherapy that describes a search for a life's meaning as the central human motivational force. Logotherapy is part of existential and humanistic psychology theories.
"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."
"Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue."
"I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one."
"Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance."
"The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living."
"We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents...Sometimes the 'unfinisheds' are among the most beautiful symphonies."
"Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human."
"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."
"Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it."
"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."
"The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances."
"When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves."
"Fear may come true that which one is afraid of."
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
"Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it."
"For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment."
"Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives."
"Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."
"Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time."
"The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy."
"Thus far we have shown that the meaning of life always changes, but that it never ceases to be. According to logotherapy, we can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering."
"As to the causation, of the feeling of meaningless, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying way, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning."
"When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure."
"Each of us has his own inner concentration camp... We must deal with, with forgiveness and patience-as full human beings, as we are and what we will become."
"Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of scarifice"