Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLHappiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
More Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
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Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
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What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.
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Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued
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Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.
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For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself.
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Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.
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Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
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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.
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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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The more one forgives himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.
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Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.
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Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.
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In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
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I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.
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Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.
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It said to me, ‘I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.’
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You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.
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No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.
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It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
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The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
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Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
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Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
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It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
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The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
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The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing
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The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading” so that “he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL