Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Terrible as it was, his experience in Auschwitz reinforced what was already one of his key ideas: 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.

Los supervivientes de los campos aún recordamos a los hombres que iban a los barracones a consolar a los demás, ofreciéndoles su único mendrugo de pan. Quizá no fueron muchos, pero esos pocos son una muestra irrefutable de que al hombre se le puede arrebatar todo, salvo una cosa: la libertad humana —la libre elección de la acción personal ante las circunstancias— para elegir el propio camino.

the typical self-centeredness of the neurotic is broken up instead of being continually fostered and reinforced

En aquel momento yo sabía muy poco de mí y del mundo, no tenía sino una única frase en mi cabeza: «En la angustia clamé al Señor y Él me contestó desde el espacio en libertad».

According to logotherapy, this striving to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man. That is why I speak of a will to meaning in contrast to the pleasure principle (or, as we could also term it, the will to pleasure) on which Freudian psychoanalysis is centered, as well as in contrast to the will to power on which Adlerian psychology, using the term "striving for superiority," is focused.

He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how." I

When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique 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. For

Hitler had argued that people would believe anything if it was repeated often enough and if disconfirming information was routinely denied, silenced, or disputed with yet more lies.

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.

Comprendí que un hombre despojado de todo todavía puede conocer la felicidad —aunque sea solo por un instante— si contempla al ser amado.

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.

research in psychoneuroimmunology has supported the ways in which positive emotions, expectations, and attitudes enhance our immune system. This research also reinforces Frankl's belief that one's approach to everything from life-threatening challenges to everyday situations helps to shape the meaning of our lives. The simple truth that Frankl so ardently promoted has profound significance for anyone who listens.

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.

Hay mucha sabiduría en las palabras de Nietzsche: «Quien tiene un porqué para vivir puede soportar casi cualquier cómo».

No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response.

And I quoted from Nietzsche: Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich starker. (That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.)

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

And what about man? Are you sure that the human world is a terminal point in the evolution of the cosmos? 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?

they thought they could use their freedom licentiously and ruthlessly. The only thing that had changed for them was that they were now the oppressors instead of the oppressed. They became instigators, not objects, of willful force and injustice. They justified their behavior by their own terrible experiences.

Notably, he renounced the idea of collective guilt. Frankl was able to accept that his Viennese colleagues and neighbors may have known about or even participated in his persecution, and he did not condemn them for failing to join the resistance or die heroic deaths. Instead, he was deeply committed to the idea that even a vile Nazi criminal or a seemingly hopeless madman has the potential to transcend evil or insanity by making responsible choices.

When, on his return, a man found that in many places he was met only with a shrug of the shoulders and with hackneyed phrases, he tended to become bitter and to ask himself why he had gone through all that he had.

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!" It seems to me that there is nothing which would

Thus, logotherapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence

No nos entraba en la cabeza que nos lo quitarían todo, absolutamente todo.