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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

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Meaning Men 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
In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Artist Creative Spiritual
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 the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Happiness Pursuit Thwart
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chaos Mans Meaning Response Search Stimulus
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
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Life Man Meaning Search Suffering
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
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Happiness Spiritual Views
The salvation of man is through love and in love.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Life Love Men
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Mean People Struggle
Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Dignity May Men Mentality Spiritual
It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Meaningful Spiritual Taken
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
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Learning Men Teaching
As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Bears Men Neurology
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
Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Being Kind Perhaps Surest
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
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
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
Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Challenges Country Fate Inspirational People Victim
One can choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Freedom Positive Thinking
There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Decent Race Two
Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Inspirational Life Motivational
The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Keys Mental Health Quests
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Limits Men Self Ultimately

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.

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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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