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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

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
Despair is suffering without meaning.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Despair Existential Suffering
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
Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Causes Dedication Sides
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Boredom Existential Vacuum
It 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. FRANKL

Above Altering Known Life Rise Well
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
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
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
What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Attitude Learning Life
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
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
Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
VIKTOR E. FRANKL

Goal Inspirational Life
Ultimately, 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. FRANKL

Challenges Life Meaning Men
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
…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

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.

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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.

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