Quotes by Viktor Frankl

“When we work creatively and productively with others, our experience of meaning can be profound. When we work directly for the good of others, meaning deepens in ways that reward us beyond measure....”

“The search for meaning in our lives takes us on paths large and small. When we go beyond ourselves-whether in forgiveness, unselfishness, thoughtfulness, generosity and understanding toward others-...”

“Whenever we suffer no matter what the severity of our suffering is we have the ability to find meaning in the situation.”

“The last of the human freedoms: to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances to choose one's own way.”

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be what he will become in the next moment.”

“It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”

“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number but they offer suffi...”

“Sports allow men to build up situations of emergency. What he then demands of himself is unnecessary achievement - and unnecessary sacrifice. He artificially creates the tension that he has been sp...”

“Whenever we suffer — no matter what the severity of our suffering is — we have the ability to find meaning in the situation.”

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be what he will become in the next moment.”

“It is true, Logotherapy, deals with the Logos; it deals with Meaning. Specifically I see Logotherapy in helping others to see meaning in life. But we cannot give meaning to the life of others. And ...”

“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.”

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. p. 32 in the 1992 edition, ISBN 0807014265, Beacon Press”

“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.”

“There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.”

“A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ulti...”

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add ...”

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by an...”

“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a p...”

“You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to saints. Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a ...”