Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time—inner time—which is a result of their unemployed state.

Apart from the moral deformity resulting from the sudden release of mental pressure, there were two other fundamental experiences which threatened to damage the character of the liberated prisoner: bitterness and disillusionment when he returned to his former life.

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.

It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom—which cannot be taken away—that makes life meaningful and purposeful.

there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

We also do not judge the life history of a particular person by the number of pages in the book that portrays it but only by the richness of the content it contains.

He who knows the 'Why' for his existence is able to bear almost any 'How'.

There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.

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.

De modo que la logoterapia considera que la esencia de la existencia consiste en la capacidad del ser humano para responder responsablemente a las demandas que la vida le plantea en cada situación particular.

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 life.

To be sure, man's search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium.

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

three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.

Quién es, en realidad, el hombre? Es el ser que siempre decide lo que es. Es el ser que inventó las cámaras de gas, pero también es el ser que entró en ellas con paso firme y musitando una oración.

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who in­ vented 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.

greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly

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.

and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly

love is as strong as death.

His faith in the future and his will to live had become paralyzed and his body fell victim to illness

Las palabras de Nietzsche «quien tiene un porqué para vivir puede soportar casi cualquier cómo» podrían ser la motivación de todos los esfuerzos psicohigiénicos y psicoterapéuticos de los prisioneros.

Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. 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.