Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.

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, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness

Psychotherapy would not only reflect a nihilistic philosophy but also, even though unwillingly and unwittingly, transmit to the patient what is actually a caricature rather than a true picture of man. First

When we are no longer able to change a situation— just think of an incurable disease such as inoperable cancer —we are challenged to change ourselves.

Yet one of the main features of human existence is the capacity to rise above such conditions, to grow beyond them. Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.

Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth.

Who can throw a stone at a man who favors his friends under circumstances when, sooner or later, it is a question of life or death? No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future

Ninguna situación se repite y cada una exige una respuesta distinta; unas veces la situación en que un hombre se encuentra puede exigirle que emprenda algún tipo de acción; otras, puede resultar más ventajoso aprovecharla para meditar y sacar las consecuencias pertinentes. Y, a veces, lo que se exige al hombre puede ser simplemente aceptar su destino y cargar con su cruz.

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. 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

Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.

focuses on the meaning of human existence as well as on man's search for such a meaning.

freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.

The innermost core of the patient's personality is not even touched by a psychosis. An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo. Without it I should not think it worthwhile to be a psychiatrist. For whose sake? Just for the sake of a damaged brain machine which cannot be repaired? If the patient were not definitely more, euthanasia would be justified.

Frank! would have argued that we are never left with nothing as long as we retain the freedom to choose how we will respond.

Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a "secondary rationalization" of instinctual drives.

any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.

If someone now asked of us the truth of Dostoevski's statement that flatly defines man as a being who can get used to anything, we would reply, "Yes, a man can get used to anything, but do not ask us how." But our psychological investigations have not taken us that far yet; neither had we prisoners reached that point. We were still in the first phase of our psychological reactions.

Na zemi existují dvÄ› lidské rasy, ale jen tyto dvÄ›: rasa lidí Ã…â"¢ádných a rasa lidí neÃ…â"¢ádných.

He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how

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

logoterapia es un método menos introspectivo y menos retrospectivo.

It goes without saying that meaning and purpose in life cannot be prescribed like a drug. It is not the job of a doctor to give meaning to the patient's life. But it may well be his task, through an existential analysis, to enable the patient to find meaning in life.