Viktor E. Frankl Quotations

When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

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

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

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.

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.

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.

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.

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.

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

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

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

The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude in a given set of circumstances.

Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.

The one thing you cant take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of ones freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance.

Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how.'

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

Everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedom -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing; the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way

Everything can be taken from a man or a woman 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.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life . . . Therein he cannotbe replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone's task is as unique as ishis specific opportunity to implement it.

Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead 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. 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.

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.

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.

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing

When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.

Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.

Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.

Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!

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."

The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.

It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.

Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.

We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed. 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. When we are no longer able to change a situation-just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer-we are challenged to change ourselves.

A human being is a deciding being.

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being until he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

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 sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

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...

What is to give light must endure burning.

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

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.

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.

Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.

Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

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

The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

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

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

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

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.

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.

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.

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

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.

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

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

Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be

This is the core of the human spirit ... If we can find something to live for - if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives - even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.

Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.

Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.

Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.

Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.

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.

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

Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.

The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.

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.

It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

One should not search for an abstract meaning of life ... Life can be made meaningful in a threefold way: first, through what we give to life ... second, by what we take from the world ... third, through the stand we take toward a fate we no longer can change ...

I shall never forget how I was roused one night by the groans of a fellow prisoner, who threw himself about in his sleep, obviously having a horrible nightmare. Since I had always been especially sorry for people who suffered from fearful dreams or deliria, I wanted to wake the poor man. Suddenly I drew back the hand which was ready to shake him, frightened at the thing I was about to do. At that moment I became intensely conscious of the fact that no dream, no matter how horrible, could be as bad as the reality of the camp which surrounded us, and to which I was about to recall him.

Ultimate freedom is a man's right to choose his attitude.

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

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.

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.

To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

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!

Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.

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.

The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.

I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.

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.

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.

To draw an analogy: a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of a 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. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the "size" of human suffering is absolutely relative.

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.

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.

In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.

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.

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.

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.

At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.

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.

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!

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 "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.

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.

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.

Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

If we take a man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be.