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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

The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Away Choose One Thing Way
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
Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Love Men Secret
Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Find Life Meaning Motivation
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
Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Challenges Expression Motivational
Once an individual’s search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Giving Successful Suffering
…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
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
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
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

Envy Past Possibility Reality Suffering
The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Keys Mental Health Quests
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
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Chaos Mans Meaning Response Search Stimulus
One can choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Freedom Positive Thinking
The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Existence Mans Meaning Search

Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

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Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.

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