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It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.

Viktor E. Frankl

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

Eternal Life Said
Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Humans Instant Meaning Search
Ultimately, we are not subject to the conditions that confront us; rather, these conditions are subject to our decision … we must decide whether we will face up or give in, whether or not we will let ourselves be determined by the conditions.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Condition Confront Decision Faces Giving
Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Afford Lying Men Opportunity Situation
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
The salvation of man is through love and in love.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

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

Artist Creative Spiritual
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
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
It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Meaningful Spiritual Taken
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
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
There are only two races, the decent and the indecent.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Decent Race Two
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
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.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Actualization Causes Giving Self

It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.

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It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.

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