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. FRANKLOur 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.
More Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
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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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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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Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.
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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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As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
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You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.
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When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.
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A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself.
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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.
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I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.
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Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.
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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.
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Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
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We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
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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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL