Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.

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

Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of scarifice

No-one will be able to make us believe that man is a sublimated animal once we can show that within him there is a repressed angel.

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

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

If you treat people to a vision of themselves, if you apparently overrate them, you make them become what they are capable of becoming.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.

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.

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.

We had to learn...that 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.

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.

Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.

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