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These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.

Viktor E. Frankl

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
What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

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

Challenges Expression Motivational
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
The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose ones attitude in any given circumstance.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Grateful Gratitude
Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it – likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Famous Fire Inspirational Strong
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
Despair is suffering without meaning.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Despair Existential Suffering
It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Future Looking Meaning Men Search
A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Despair Disease Mean 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
I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Deeds Done Forget Good
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chaos Mans Meaning Response Search Stimulus
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Kind Spirit Suffering
You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Journey Life Missions
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Life Man Meaning Search Suffering
The last of human freedoms – the ability to chose one’s attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Gratitude Lasts
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
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
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
We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Asking Life Man Meaning Search
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Honesty Humility Men
Everywhere man is confronted with fate , with a chance of achieving something through his own suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Fate Inspirational Men
Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Existential Humanity Psychotherapy
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Causes Dedication Happiness
Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Detect Gains Men Pain
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

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.

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These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.

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Popular Authors

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