Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.

As soon as the patient stops fighting his obsessions and instead tries to ridicule them by dealing with them in an ironic way - by applying paradoxical intention - the vicious circle is cut, the symptom diminishes and finally atrophies.

With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly, in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate.

suffering. Take the fate of the sick—especially those who are incurable. I once read a letter written by a young invalid, in which he told a friend that he had just found out he would not live for long, that even an operation would be of no help. He wrote further that he remembered a film he had seen in which a man was portrayed who waited for death in a

If it were avoidable, however, the meaningful thing to do would be to remove its cause, be it psychological, biological or political. To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

No one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them

I]n the last resort, man should not ask What is the meaning of my life? but should realize that he himself is being questioned. Life is putting its problems to him, and it is up to him to respond to these questions by being responsible; he can only answer to life by answering for his life.

that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from

Nietzsche, "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How.

It is the nature of love that makes us see our loved one in their uniqueness and individuality.

Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud.

The fear of sleeplessness12 results in a hyper-intention to fall asleep, which, in turn, incapacitates the patient to do so. To overcome this particular fear, I usually advise the patient not to try to sleep but rather to try to do just the opposite, that is, to stay awake as long as possible.

Both I and my troubles became the object of an interesting psychoscientific study undertaken by myself. What does Spinoza say in his Ethics?—Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam. Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior

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?" There simply is no such thing as the best or even a good move apart from a particular situation in a game and the particular personality of one's opponent. The same holds for human existence.

anticipatory anxiety.

mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become.

Though it may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which physiologically, surely, must not be without danger.

in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

el amor es la meta última y más alta a la que puede aspirar el hombre. Percibí entonces, en toda su profundidad, el significado del mayor secreto que la poesía, el pensamiento y las creencias intentan comunicar: la salvación del hombre consiste en el amor y pasa por el amor.

I had intended to write this book anonymously, using my prison number only. But when the manuscript was completed, I saw that as an anonymous publication it would lose half its value

The past few years have certainly disenchanted us, but they have also shown us that what is human is still valid; they have taught us that it is all a question of the individual human being. After all, in the end, what was left was the human being! Because it was the human being that survived amidst all the filth ofthe recent past.

Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become. Such a tension is inherent in the human being and therefore is indispensable to mental well-being. We should not, then, be hesitant about challenging man with a potential meaning for him

everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find)