Viktor E. Frankl Quotes: 64 Quotes on Purpose, Resilience, and Finding Meaning in Life's Challenges

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The Doctor and the Soul

Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor E. Frankl: 64 quotes178 likes

Famous Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

“What is to give light must endure burning.”

Viktor E. Frankl

The quote is mistakenly attributed to the author

“Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Quoted in Man's Search for Meaning and attributed to Friedrich Nietzsche.

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Source: book Man's Search For Meaning

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning
Variant: But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.

“Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984), p. 32 in the 1992 edition, ISBN 0807014265, Beacon Press

Viktor E. Frankl Quotes about life

“The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.

“A thought transfixed me: 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 the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: A thought transfixed me: 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 the 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. … 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."

“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.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Source: Man's Search For Meaning: The classic tribute to hope from the Holocaust

“What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984), p. 67 in the 1959 Beacon Press edition

Viktor E. Frankl Quotes about suffering

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading" so that "he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Variant: To Suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
Source: 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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor E. Frankl: Trending quotes

“When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)

“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality”

Viktor E. Frankl

Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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 book The Doctor and the Soul

Source: The Doctor and the Soul

“Human potential at its best is to transform a tragedy into a personal triumph, to turn one's predicament into a human achievement.”

Viktor E. Frankl

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

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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

“Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his 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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: 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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: A thought transfixed me: 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 the 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. … 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."

“It is true, Logotherapy, deals with the Logos; it deals with Meaning.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning (1997)
Context: It is true, Logotherapy, deals with the Logos; it deals with Meaning. Specifically I see Logotherapy in helping others to see meaning in life. But we cannot “give” meaning to the life of others. And if this is true of meaning per se, how much does it hold for Ultimate Meaning?

“I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: 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

“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

“The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.”

Viktor E. Frankl

Source: Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning

“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.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984), p. 126 in the 1984 Pocket Books edition

“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 book Man's Search for Meaning

Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)

“That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints."”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Postscript 1984 : The Case for a Tragic Optimism, based on a lecture at the Third World Congress of Logotherapy, Regensburg University (19 June 1983)
Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints." Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

“But we cannot “give” meaning to the life of others. And if this is true of meaning per se, how much does it hold for Ultimate Meaning?”

Viktor E. Frankl

“So live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: 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

“A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: 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

“Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“A life of short duration… could be so rich in joy and love that it could contain more meaning than a life lasting eighty years.”

Viktor E. Frankl

“Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Postscript 1984 : The Case for a Tragic Optimism, based on a lecture at the Third World Congress of Logotherapy, Regensburg University (19 June 1983)
Variant: So, let us be alert in a twofold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
Source: Man's Search for Meaning (1946; 1959; 1984)
Context: You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints." Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense:
Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of.
And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.

“Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.”

Viktor E. Frankl book Man's Search for Meaning

Source: Man's Search for Meaning

“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

Viktor E. Frankl