Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human. Viktor E. Frankl More Quotes by Viktor E. Frankl More Quotes From Viktor E. Frankl In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it. Viktor E. Frankl times-of-crisis survival people Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all. Viktor E. Frankl belief-in-god unconditional belief Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant. Viktor E. Frankl instant search-for-meaning humans 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-inspirational strong fire The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes. Viktor E. Frankl humans self forget 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 dedication causes happiness When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden. Viktor E. Frankl unique opportunity lying 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. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Viktor E. Frankl decision self men 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 sparks web-of-life unique 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 ones attitude in any given circumstance. Viktor E. Frankl gratitude grateful attitude Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality Viktor E. Frankl personality love way At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children); it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all. Viktor E. Frankl pain hurt children 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 learning attitude life 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 our-generation prayer men As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable. Viktor E. Frankl survivor men two Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering Viktor E. Frankl successful suffering giving Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for. Viktor E. Frankl today mean people 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 I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers. Viktor E. Frankl berlin ministry lectures There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life. Viktor E. Frankl venture helping world
