Viktor E. Frankl
The struggle for existence is a struggle 'for' something; it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.Collection: Meaningful
Man's last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situationCollection: Men
Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.Collection: Motivation
...to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.Collection: Thinking
I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.Collection: Men
A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.Collection: Mean
Somewhere I heard a victorious "Yes" in answer to my question of the existence of ultimate purpose.Collection: Purpose
A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself.Collection: Men
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.Collection: Opportunity
Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.Collection: Men
One can choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances.Collection: Freedom
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 he is enabled to see the essential traits and features.Collection: Love
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.Collection: Earth
Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.Collection: Inspirational
Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through.Collection: Worst Situation
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.Collection: Men
As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.Collection: Men
For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.Collection: Happiness
The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.Collection: Giving
Man's search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.Collection: Motivation
No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.Collection: Freedom To Choose
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.Collection: Beloved
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 a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animalCollection: Fate
I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.Collection: Tasks
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.Collection: Chaos
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.Collection: Love
What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think. "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these things are things that cannot inspire envy."Collection: Past
You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me - and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!Collection: Children
The salvation of man is through love and in love.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Years
It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.Collection: Rise Above
A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.Collection: Men
It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.Collection: Mans Search For Meaning
Austrian public-opinion pollsters recently reported that those held in highest esteem by most of the people interviewed are neither the great artists nor the great scientists, neither the great statesmen nor the great sport figures, but those who master a hard lot with their heads held high.Collection: Sports
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decideCollection: Teaching
Because of social pressure, individualism is rejected by most people in favor of conformity. Thus the individual relies mainly upon the actions of others and neglects the meaning of his own personal life. Hence he sees his own life as meaningless and falls into the “existential vacuum” feeling inner void. Progressive automation causes increasing alcoholism, juvenile delinquency, and suicide.Collection: Suicide
I try to do everything as soon as possible, and not at the last moment. This ensures that, when I am overburdened with work, I will not face the added pressure of knowing that something is still to be done.Collection: Knowing
If there is 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 complete.Collection: Fate
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task. . . . He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.Collection: Lying
It said to me, 'I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.'Collection: Here I Am
Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.Collection: Men
[Speaking of his experience in a concentration camp:] As we said before, any attempt to restore a man's inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in showing him some future goal...Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost.Collection: Men
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 spared by affluent society.Collection: Sports
Everywhere man is confronted with fate , with a chance of achieving something through his own suffering.Collection: Inspirational
Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.Collection: Kindness
As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.Collection: Struggle
Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.Collection: Past
There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.Collection: Race