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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

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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Generation Men Our Prayer
Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condemn Groups Kindness
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Change Happiness Life
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Encounters Existentialism Suffering
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Courage Grief Men
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
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
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run- in the long run, I say! – success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Long Running Thinking
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
Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Ensues Happiness Pursued
It said to me, ‘I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.’
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Eternal Life Said
I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

One Pleasant Tasks
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
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Humans Instant Meaning Search
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
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Death Fate Life Meaning Suffering
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
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Future Looking Meaning Men Search
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
You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Journey Life Missions
It is true that we can see the therapist as a technician only if we have first viewed the patient as some sort of machine.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Firsts Machine Patient
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
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chance Life Second Time
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Fear Sacrifice Suffering
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Learning Men Teaching
…to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life-daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Answers Meditation Thinking
The struggle for existence is a struggle ‘for’ something; it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Meaningful Purposeful Something Struggle

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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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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