Quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

“A man's suffering is similar to the behavior of gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thu...”

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of scarifice”

“Unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic.”

“I refer to what is called mysterium iniquitatis, meaning, as I see it, that a crime in the final analysis remains inexplicable inasmuch as it cannot be fully traced back to biological, psychologica...”

“No-one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.”

“Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.”

“The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

“If you treat people to a vision of themselves, if you apparently overrate them, you make them become what they are capable of becoming.”

“He who knows the 'Why' for his existence is able to bear almost any 'How'.”

“We have absolutely no control over what happens to us in life but what we have paramount control over is how we respond to those events.”

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear ...”

“At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal's behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man f...”

“We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop aski...”

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”

“A life of short duration...could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.”

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love...”

“Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”

“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the '...”

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be...”

“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”