Top 500 Viktor E. Frankl Quotes (2024 Update)
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201. “Life requires of man spiritual elasticity, so that he may temper his efforts to the chances that are offered.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

202. “There were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

203. “Man does not simply exist, but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment...”

— Viktor E. Frankl

204. “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

205. “The transitoriness of our existence in now way makes it meaningless. But it does constitute our responsibleness; for everything hinges upon our realizing the essentially transitory possibilities.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

206. “I try to do everything as soon as possible, and not at the last moment. This ensures that, when I am overburdened with work, I will not face the added pressure of knowing that something is still to be done.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

207. “Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from a conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

208. “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

209. “Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

210. “Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

211. “If the man in the concentration camp did not struggle against this in a last effort to save his self-respect, he lost the feeling of being an individual, a being with a mind, with inner freedom and personal value. He thought of himself then as only a part of an enormous mass of people; his existence descended to the level of animal life.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

212. “Thank heaven, Sigmund Freud was spared knowing the concentration camps from the inside. His subjects lay on a couch designed in the plush style of Victorian culture, not in the filth of Auschwitz.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

213. “Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

214. “There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man’s attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

215. “Psychological observations of the prisoners have shown that only the men who allowed their inner hold on their moral and spiritual selves to subside eventually fell victim to the camp’s degenerating influences.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

216. “God is the partner of our most intimate soliloquies. That is to say, whenever you are talking to yourself in utmost sincerity and ultimate solitude – he to whom you are addressing yourself may justifiably be called God.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

217. “One can choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

218. “When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

219. “Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

220. “The experiences of camp life show that man does have a choice of action. There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. Man can preserve a vestige of spiritual freedom, of independence of mind, even in such terrible conditions of psychic and physical stress.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

221. “No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

222. “To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

223. “For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, “The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

224. “It is one of the basic tenets of logotherapy that 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

225. “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how,” could be the guiding motto for all psychotherapeutic.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

226. “Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

227. “To be sure, man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

228. “The immediate influence of behavior is always more effective than that of words.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

229. “Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

230. “In another timely insight, Frankl saw that a materialistic view, in which people end up mindlessly consuming and fixating on what they can buy next, epitomizes a meaningless life, as he put it, where we are “guzzling away” without any thought of morality.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

231. “Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insuffcient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him – mentally and spiritually.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

232. “There are situations in which one is cut off from the opportunity to do one’s work or enjoy one’s life; but what can never be ruled out is the unavoidability of suffering. In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end. In other words, life’s meaning is an unconditional one, for it even includes the potential meaning of unavoidable suffering.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

233. “On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles – whatever one may choose to call them – we know: the best of us did not return.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

234. “Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings.” These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of the their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom – which cannot be taken away – that makes life meaningful and purposeful.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

235. “The destiny a person suffers therefore has a twofold meaning: to be shaped where possible, and to be endured where necessary.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

236. “Et lux in tenebris lucet.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

237. “What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? “No, thank you,” he will think. “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

238. “This uniqueness and singleness which distinguishes each individual and gives a meaning to his existence has a bearing on creative work as much as it does on human love.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

239. “Vivir significa asumir la responsabilidad de encontrar la respuesta correcta a los problemas que ello plantea y cumplir las tareas que la vida asigna continuamente a cada individuo.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

240. “In accepting this challenge to suffer bravely, life has a meaning up to the last moment, and it retains this meaning literally to the end.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

241. “Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which a man can aspire. The salvation of man is through love and in love...”

— Viktor E. Frankl

242. “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life to carry out a concrete assignment which demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

243. “What does Spinoza say in his Ethics? – “Affectus, qui passio est, desinit esse passio simulatque eius claram et distinctam formamus ideam.” Emotion, which is suffering, ceases to be suffering as soon as we form a clear and precise picture of it.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

244. “The rift dividing good from evil, which goes through all human beings, reaches into the lowest depths and becomes apparent even on the bottom of the abyss which is laid open by the concentration camp.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

245. “The fear is mother of the event.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

246. “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment. To put the question in general terms would be comparable to the question posed to a chess champion: “Tell me, Master, what is the best move in the world?”

— Viktor E. Frankl

247. “From this one may see that there is no reason to pity old people. Instead, young people should envy them. It is true that the old have no opportunities, no possibilities in the future. But they have more than that. Instead of possibilities in the future, they have realities in the past – the potentialities they have actualized, the meanings they have fulfilled, the values they have realized – and nothing and nobody can ever remove these assets from the past.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

248. “George, you must realize that the world is a joke. There is no justice, everything is random. Only when you realize this will you understand how silly it is to take yourself seriously. There is no grand purpose in the universe. It just is. There’s no particular meaning in what decision you make today about how to act.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

249. “Los hombres ilustres siempre recomienzan, y eso los convierte en admirables e imitables.”

— Viktor E. Frankl

250. “He also believed strongly in reconciliation rather than revenge; he once remarked, “I do not forget any good deed done to me, and I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

— Viktor E. Frankl