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Man’s last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation

Viktor E. Frankl

Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Answers Life Men
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. FRANKL

Believe Liberty Mean
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

Opportunity Suffering Unhappy
Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Carrying Purpose Woe
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Beloved Mans 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
Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Meaning Men Search World
Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Goal Inspirational Life
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
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Learning Life
Man’s search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chiefs Men Motivation
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

Consequences Goal Psychology Unintended
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 own life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Believe Greatest Quests Task Taught
It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Meaning Men Search
Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Challenges Expression Motivational
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
The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Existence Mans Meaning Search
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
Ultimately, we are not subject to the conditions that confront us; rather, these conditions are subject to our decision … we must decide whether we will face up or give in, whether or not we will let ourselves be determined by the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Confront Decision Faces Giving
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
It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Happiness Pursuit Thwart
We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Different Life Suffering
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
At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Existence Men Moments
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Learning Men Teaching
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Country Lectures Ministry Ultimately
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

Man’s last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation

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Man’s last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation

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