Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

Ultimately, we are not subject to the conditions that confront us; rather, these conditions are subject to our decision ... we must decide whether we will face up or give in, whether or not we will let ourselves be determined by the conditions.

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.

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.

Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.

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

You don't create your mission in life - you detect it.

Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued

It said to me, 'I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.'

In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.

Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.

Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.

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.

Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all.

There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.

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.

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.

One evening, when we were already resting on the floor of our hut, dead tired, soup bowls in hand, a fellow prisoner rushed in and asked us to run out to the assembly grounds and see the wonderful sunset. Standing outside we saw sinister clouds glowing in the west and the whole sky alive with clouds of ever-changing shapes and colors, from steel blue to blood red. The desolate grey mud huts provided a sharp contrast, while the puddles on the muddy ground reflected the glowing sky. Then, after minutes of moving silence, one prisoner said to another, "How beautiful the world could be.

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.

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

Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.

Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.

God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies

Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.

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.

No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.

Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through.

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.

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.

Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

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.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

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.

Man's search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.

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.

To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. 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. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: "He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.

Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.

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.

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.

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.

Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.

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.

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.

I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair.

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.

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.

Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.