Man's Search for Meaning

by Viktor E. Frankl

we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.

It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future—sub specie aeternitatis. And this is his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task.

The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay. Usually this happened quite suddenly, in the form of a crisis, the symptoms of which were familiar to the experienced camp inmate. We all feared this moment—not for ourselves, which would have been pointless, but for our friends.

Those who know how close the connection is between the state of mind of a man—his courage and hope, or lack of them—and the state of immunity of his body will understand that the sudden loss of hope and courage can have a deadly effect.

The death rate in the week between Christmas, 1944, and New Year’s, 1945, increased in camp beyond all previous experience.

In his opinion, the explanation for this increase did not lie in the harder working conditions or the deterioration of our food supplies or a change of weather or new epidemics. It was simply that the majority of the prisoners had lived in the naïve hope that they would be home again by Christmas. As the time drew near and there was no encouraging news, the prisoners lost courage and disappointment overcame them. This had a dangerous influence on their powers of resistance and a great number of them died.

any attempt to restore a man’s inner strength in the camp had first to succeed in sho...

Nietzsche’s words, “He who has a why to live for can bear ...

Whenever there was an opportunity for it, one had to give them a why—an aim—for their lives, in order to strengthen them to bear the terrible how of their existence.

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” What sort of answer can one give to that?

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our at...

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,...

We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being que...

Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action...

Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it c...

These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define ...

Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as...

They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, ...

Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity fo...

Sometimes man may be required simply to accept fate, ...

Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem ...

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...

For us, as prisoners, these thoughts were not speculations far removed from reality. They were the only thoughts that could be of help to us. They kept us from despair, even when there...

For us, the meaning of life embraced the wider cycles of life and death, of suffering and of dying.

Once the meaning of suffering had been revealed to us, we refused to minimize or alleviate the camp’s tortures by ignoring them or harboring false illusions and entertaining artificial optimism. Suffering had become a task on which we did not want to turn our backs.

There was plenty of suffering for us to get through. Therefore, it was necessary to face up to the full amount of suffering, trying to keep moments of weakness and furtive tears to a minimum.

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.

His work could not be done by anyone else, any more than another person could ever take the place of the father in his child’s affections.

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. 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.

A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, wi...

He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bea...

The right example was more effective than words could ever be.

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

Encouragement was now more necessary than ever.

Whoever was still alive had reason for hope.

Health, family, happiness, professional abilities, fortune, position in society —all these were things that could be achieved again or restored.

Whatever we had gone through could still be an asset to us in the future. And I quoted from Nietzsche: “Was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker.” (That ...

I also mentioned the past; all its joys, and how its light shone even in the present darkness.

(What you have experienced, no power on earth can take from you.) Not only our experiences, but all we have done, whatever great thoughts we may have had, and all we have suffered, all this is not lost, though it is past; we have brought it into being. Having been is also a kind of being, and perhaps the surest kind.

human life, under any circumstances, never ceases to have a meaning, and that this infinite meaning of life includes suffering and dying, privation and death.

They must not lose hope but should keep their courage in the certainty that the hopelessness of our struggle did not detract from its dignity and its meaning.

He would hope to find us suffering proudly—not miserably—knowing how to die.

And finally I spoke of our sacrifice, which had meaning in every case. It was in the nature of this sacrifice that it should appear to be pointless in the normal world, the world of material success. But in reality our sacrifice did have a meaning.

The purpose of my words was to find a full meaning in our life, then and there, in that hut and in that practically hopeless situation.

We now come to the third stage of a prisoner’s mental reactions: the psychology of the prisoner after his liberation.

Third, the feelings of the majority of the guards had been dulled by the number of years in which, in ever-increasing doses, they had witnessed the brutal methods of the camp.

Fourth, it must be stated that even among the guards there were some who took pity on us.

It is apparent that the mere knowledge that a man was either a camp guard or a prisoner tells us almost nothing.

From all this we may learn that 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. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people.

Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths.