quotes by 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

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, 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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

""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

"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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

"Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

"
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless 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 but yet ought to be 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 of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"What is to give light must endure burning."
— 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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

"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

""When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.""
— Viktor E. Frankl

"Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude."
— 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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

"Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"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..."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

""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." - from the book, Man's Search for Meaning"
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"Live as if you were living for the second time and acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"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.

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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

"[The self-transendence of human existence:] denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself- be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets 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. What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality"
— Viktor E. Frankl

"Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose."
— Viktor E. Frankl

"We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents...Sometimes the 'unfinisheds' are among the most beautiful symphonies."
— Viktor E. Frankl (The Doctor and the Soul)

"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

"It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"...I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsiblity on the West Coast."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

""Everything can be taken from a man but ...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

"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

"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 (Man's Search for Meaning)

"The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore—except his God."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.

"
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best."
— Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)

"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

""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." - from the book, Man's Search for Meaning"
— 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 away 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