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Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

Viktor E. Frankl

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Life Meaning Men Tasks
Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Determined Giving Men
The last of human freedoms – the ability to chose one’s attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Gratitude Lasts
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Asking Life Man Meaning Search
If we take a man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Becoming Men Should
One should not search for an abstract meaning of life … Life can be made meaningful in a threefold way: first, through what we give to life … second, by what we take from the world … third, through the stand we take toward a fate we no longer can change.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Fate Giving Meaningful
Sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one’s hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Hands Long Sleep
But my mind clung to my wife’s image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Frank Image Mind Real Wife
Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Effort Men Spiritual
Thus, human existence-at least as long as it has not been neurotically distorted-is always directed to something, or someone, other than itself, be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter lovingly.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Encounters Existential Human Long
This is the core of the human spirit … If we can find something to live for – if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives – even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Kind Spirit Suffering
The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Keys Mental Health Quests
Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it – likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Famous Fire Inspirational Strong
We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents…Sometimes the ‘unfinisheds’ are among the most beautiful symphonies.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Beautiful Death Symphony
It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Future Past Today Undermine
As the struggle for survival has subsided, the question has emerged: survival for what? Ever more people have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Mean People Struggle

Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

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Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.

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Popular Authors

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