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. FRANKLThe 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. FRANKLEach 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. FRANKLFor 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. FRANKLIf 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. FRANKLLive as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLOne can choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLThe angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLLife is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLView life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLIt is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLUltimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLUltimately, 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. FRANKLWhat you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLOur 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. FRANKLThere are only two races, the decent and the indecent.
VIKTOR E. FRANKLHappiness 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