Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

Thus it can be seen that mental health is based on a certain degree of tension, the tension 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 to fulfill. It is only thus that we evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency.

And yet is not this transitoriness a reminder that challenges us to make the best possible use of each moment of our lives? It certainly is, and hence my imperative: Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now. In

No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same. Long

Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

Woe to him who, when the day of his dreams finally came, found it so different from all he had longed for!

O bien se reconoce la libertad decisoria del hombre a favor o en contra de los hombres o toda educación es una ilusión.

we knew he had given up faith in his strength to carry on, and, once lost, the will to live seldom returned.

no es el sufrimiento en sí mismo el que madura o enturbia al hombre, es el hombre el que da sentido al sufrimiento. Hasta

there are two races of men in this world, but only these two—the "race" of the decent man and the "race" of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people. In

I doubt whether a doctor can answer this question in general terms. 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.

El hombre que se hace consciente de su responsabilidad ante el ser humano que le espera con todo su afecto o ante una obra inconclusa no podrá nunca tirar su vida por la borda. Conoce el porqué de su existencia y podrá soportar casi cualquier cómo.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.

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 to fulfill. It is only thus that we evoke his will to meaning from its state of latency.

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.

I think the meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.

Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.

La libertad no es la última palabra. La libertad es una parte de la historia y la mitad de la verdad. La libertad es la cara negativa de cualquier fenómeno humano, cuya cara positiva es la responsabilidad. De hecho, la libertad se encuentra en peligro de degenerar en mera arbitrariedad salvo si se ejerce en términos de responsabilidad.

Thus the illusions some of us still held were destroyed one by one, and then, quite unexpectedly, most of us were overcome by a grim sense of humor. We knew that we had nothing to lose except our so ridiculously naked lives. When the showers started to run, we all tried very hard to make fun, both about ourselves and about each other. After all, real water did flow from the sprays!

life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.

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.

A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.

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 in which we respond to it. At

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