Viktor E. Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist. He was the founder of logotherapy, a form of existential analysis, and the author of Man's Search for Meaning. He was a Holocaust survivor and his experiences in the concentration camps shaped his views on the human capacity to find meaning in suffering. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Viktor E. Frankl on life, love, friendship.
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.
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!
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.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
There are two races of men in this world but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.
Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
What is to give light must endure burning.
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Viktor E. Frankl inspirational quote
Viktor E. Frankl Short Quotes
Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.
To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.
Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.
Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.
It said to me, 'I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.'
When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.
The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Life
Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible. — Viktor E. Frankl
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
You don't create your mission in life - you detect it. — Viktor E. Frankl
Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away -
that makes life meaningful and purposeful. — Viktor E. Frankl
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. 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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. — Viktor E. Frankl
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. — Viktor E. Frankl
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 potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Love
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in its 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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. — Viktor E. Frankl
Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. — Viktor E. Frankl
Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Happiness
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering — Viktor E. Frankl
One can choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances. — Viktor E. Frankl
I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable. — Viktor E. Frankl
Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself. — Viktor E. Frankl
View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn't — Viktor E. Frankl
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' — Viktor E. Frankl
It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. — Viktor E. Frankl
Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. — Viktor E. Frankl
Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Death
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 complete. — Viktor E. Frankl
I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Meaning
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. — Viktor E. Frankl
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. — Viktor E. Frankl
Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
I would say that our patients never really despair because of any suffering in itself! Instead, their despair stems in each instance from a doubt as to whether suffering is meaningful. Man is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it. — Viktor E. Frankl
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. — Viktor E. Frankl
For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement. — Viktor E. Frankl
And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger. — Viktor E. Frankl
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. — Viktor E. Frankl
Despair is suffering without meaning. — Viktor E. Frankl
A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is true that we can see the therapist as a technician only if we have first viewed the patient as some sort of machine. — Viktor E. Frankl
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way. — Viktor E. Frankl
Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy. — Viktor E. Frankl
Thus, human existence-at least as long as it has not been neurotically distorted-is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself, be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter lovingly. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Purpose
Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life. — Viktor E. Frankl
There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces. — Viktor E. Frankl
Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through. — Viktor E. Frankl
Somewhere I heard a victorious "Yes" in answer to my question of the existence of ultimate purpose. — Viktor E. Frankl
Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone; only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning. — Viktor E. Frankl
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. — 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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Ultimate
I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers. — Viktor E. Frankl
Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Ultimate freedom is a man's right to choose his attitude. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
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 ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. — Viktor E. Frankl
Faith is trust in ultimate meaning. — Viktor E. Frankl
Religion is the search for ultimate meaning. — Viktor E. Frankl
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide — Viktor E. Frankl
A man who could not see the end of his"provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Auschwitz
Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake. — Viktor E. Frankl
Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips. — Viktor E. Frankl
Man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips. — Viktor E. Frankl
When I was taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, a manuscript of mine ready for publication was confiscated. Certainly, my deep desire to write this manuscript anew helped me to survive the rigors of the camps I was in. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Quotes About Attitude
Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude. — Viktor E. Frankl
The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance. — Viktor E. Frankl
The last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way. — Viktor E. Frankl
Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way. — Viktor E. Frankl
The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances. — Viktor E. Frankl
The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances. — Viktor E. Frankl
No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms. — Viktor E. Frankl
The last freedom is choosing your attitude. — Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl Famous Quotes And Sayings
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. — Viktor E. Frankl
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering. — Viktor E. Frankl
Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward. — Viktor E. Frankl
The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore—except his God. — Viktor E. Frankl
We had to learn...that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us. — Viktor E. Frankl
We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering. — Viktor E. Frankl
Pain from problems and disappointments, etc., is inevitable in life, but suffering is a choice determined by whether you choose to compare your experience and pain to something better and therefore feel unlucky and bitter or to something worse and therefore feel lucky and grateful! — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it. — Viktor E. Frankl
As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons. — Viktor E. Frankl
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! — Viktor E. Frankl
Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes... Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself. — Viktor E. Frankl
Success is total self-acceptance. — Viktor E. Frankl
[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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a
hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond
himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph. — Viktor E. Frankl
Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to
the future...And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments
of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to
the task. — Viktor E. Frankl
At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all. — Viktor E. Frankl
Everywhere man is confronted with fate , with a chance of achieving something through his own suffering. — Viktor E. Frankl
If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life. — Viktor E. Frankl
I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one. — Viktor E. Frankl
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 that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. — Viktor E. Frankl
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners. — Viktor E. Frankl
A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient. — Viktor E. Frankl
But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise. — Viktor E. Frankl
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run- in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future. — Viktor E. Frankl
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. — Viktor E. Frankl
It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions. — Viktor E. Frankl
Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast. — Viktor E. Frankl
Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not. — Viktor E. Frankl
Life Lessons by Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl's work emphasizes the importance of finding meaning and purpose in life, even in the face of adversity. He believed that each person has the potential to find meaning in their own unique way, and that this is the key to achieving true happiness.
Frankl's concept of "logotherapy" encourages individuals to take responsibility for their own lives, to focus on the present moment, and to strive for self-transcendence.
Through his work, Frankl encourages us to find our own unique path to fulfillment, to recognize our own individual potential, and to strive to make a positive impact on the world.
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