Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it. At one point, Frankl writes that a person "may remain brave, dignified and unselfish, or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity

Don't aim at success-the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue. – Viktor Frankl

Is this to say that suffering is indispensable to the discovery of meaning? In no way. I only insist that meaning is available in spite of—nay, even through—suffering, provided, as noted in Part Two of this book, that the suffering is unavoidable. If it is avoidable, the meaningful thing to do is to remove its cause, for unnecessary suffering is masochistic rather than heroic.

If you want to stay alive, there is only one way: look fit for work.

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.

Bir t?rmanma kazas?nda hayati bir tehlikeye girince, o anda tek bir duyguya kap?lm??t?m: Kazadan saÄŸ m? kurtulaca??m, yoksa kafatas? parçalanm?? vs. ÅŸekilde yaralanm?? olarak m? ç?kaca??m konusunda yoÄŸun bir merak.

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.

Gordon W. Allport's book, The Individual and His Religion:

Their question was Will we survive the camp? For, if not, all this suffering has no meaning. The question which beset me was, Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance—as whether one escapes or not—ultimately would not be worth living at all.

Creo que fue Lessing quien afirmó: «Hay cosas que pueden hacerte perder la razón, a no ser que no tengas ninguna razón que perder». En una situación anormal, una reacción anormal constituye una conducta normal.

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

Not every conflict is necessarily neurotic; some amount of conflict is normal and healthy. In a similar sense suffering is not always a pathological phenomenon; rather than being a symptom of neurosis, suffering may well be a human achievement, especially if the suffering grows out of existential frustration.

a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would never have achieved.

Which choice will be made an actuality once and forever, an immortal "footprint in the sands of time"? At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.

Gordon W. Allport's book, The Individual and His Religion: "The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure.

hay dos razas de hombres en el mundo y nada más que dos: la raza de los hombres decentes y la raza de los indecentes. Ambas se encuentran en todas partes y en todas las capas sociales. Ningún grupo se compone de hombres decentes o de hombres indecentes, así sin más ni más.

amor trasciende la persona física del ser amado y halla su sentido más profundo en el ser espiritual, el yo íntimo. Que esté o no presente esa persona, que siga viva o no, en cierto modo carece de importancia.

Sella conmigo tu corazón... pues fuerte como la muerte es el amor (Cantar de los Cantares 8,6).

Instead of taking the camp's difficulties as a test of their inner strength, they did not take their life seriously and despised it as something of no consequence. They preferred to close their eyes and to live in the past. Life for such people became meaningless. Naturally only a few people were capable

More and more, a psychiatrist is approached today by patients who confront him with human problems, rather than neurotic symptoms. Some of the people who nowadays call upon a psychiatrist would have seen a pastor, priest, or rabbi in former days. Now they often refuse to be handed over to a clergyman, and instead confront the doctor with questions such as: What is the meaning of my life?.

We had to strive to lead them back to this truth, or the consequences would have been much worse than the loss of a few thousand stalks of oats.

once lost, the will to live seldom returned.

To compare yourself with anyone else is to do an injustice either to yourself or to the other person. [...] For everyone has a different kind of start. But the person whose start was more difficult, whose fate was less kind, can be credited with the greater personal achievement, other things being equal. Since, however, all aspects of the situation imposed by fate can never be assessed, there is simply no basis and no standard for a comparison of achievements.

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease. It may well be that interpreting the first in terms of the latter motivates a doctor to bury his patient's existential despair under a heap of tranquilizing drugs. It is his task, rather, to pilot the patient through his existential crises of growth and development.