Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Sed omnia praeclara tam difficilia quam rara sunt" (but everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find) reads the last sentence of the Ethics of Spinoza.

But today's society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness.

a man's suffering is similar to the behavior of 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.

Nenormaliai reaguoti ? nenormali? pad?t? yra normalu.

There was plenty of suffering for us to get through. Therefore, it was necessary to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum. 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. Only very few realized that.

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. These

God is the partner of our most intimate soliloquies. That is to say, whenever you are talking to yourself in utmost sincerity and ultimate solitude--he to whom you are addressing yourself may justifiably be called God.

Por lo tanto, lo que importa no es el sentido de la vida en formulaciones abstractas, sino el sentido concreto de la vida de un individuo en un momento determinado.

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.

Is it not conceivable that there is still another dimension, a world beyond man's world; a world in which the question of an ultimate meaning of human suffering would find an answer?

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. The

The destiny a person suffers therefore has a twofold meaning: to be shaped where possible, and to be endured where necessary.

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepet meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.

success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

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. To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: "Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?

Frankl wondered whether "there may be such a thing as autobibliotherapy—healing through reading." Frankl's

Cualquier hombre, a lo largo de su vida, se verá enfrentado a su destino y tendrá la oportunidad de convertir un puro estado de sufrimiento en una hazaña interior. Piénsese

we are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond.

the perception of meaning, as I see it, more specifically boils down to becoming aware of a possibility against the background of reality or, to express it in plain words, to becoming aware of what can be done about a given situation.

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 his life.

I consider it a dangerous misconception of mental hygiene to assume that what man needs in the first place is equilibrium or, as it is called in biology, homeostasis, i.e., a tensionless state. What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.

There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.

el amor es la meta última y más alta a la que puede aspirar el hombre.

El humor es otra de las armas del alma en su lucha por la supervivencia.