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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLIf 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.
More Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
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It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
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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.
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A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.”
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Man’s search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.
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The last freedom is choosing your attitude.
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But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
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God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies
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I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.
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Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
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Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
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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.
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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.
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View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn’t? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn’t
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The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.
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If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
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Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.
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Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in its spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
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Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.
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What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.
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When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.
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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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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.
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You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.
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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, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.
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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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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