Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor, surviving Theresienstadt, Kaufering, and Türkheim. Frankl was the founder of the logotherapy method and is most notable for his best-selling book Man’s Search for Meaning. These Viktor E Frankl Quotes will motivate you.
Best Viktor E Frankl Quotes
- “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
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“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
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“Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. 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. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.” ~ 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
- “Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one’s belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one’s right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
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“When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead 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. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in its spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.” ~ Viktor E Frankl Quotes
- “For the first time in my life, I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. 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
- “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
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“What is to give light must endure burning.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “It isn’t the past which holds us back, it’s the future; and how we undermine it, today.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
- “Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “The meaning of my life is to help others find meaning in theirs.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “There are two races of men in this world but only these two: the race of the decent man and the race of the indecent man.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “In some ways, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment, it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
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“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being until he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being until he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
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“The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
- “Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.” ~ Viktor E Frankl Quotes
- “The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
- “To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
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“God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “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
- “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
- “Each 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. Frankl
- “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me makes me stronger.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
- “Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.” ~ Viktor E. Frankl
