Viktor E. Frankl Quotes
When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.
Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
The one thing you can't take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me.
Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS!
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.
Success, like happiness, is the unexpected side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.
It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future; and how we undermine it, today.
Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
Being tolerant does not mean that I share another one's belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another one's right to believe, and obey, his own conscience.
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
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.
This is the core of the human spirit ... If we can find something to live for - if we can find some meaning to put at the center of our lives - even the worst kind of suffering becomes bearable.
Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.
It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.
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.
Life asks of every individual a contribution, and it is up to that individual to discover what it should be
Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.
Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality
Man’s main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life.
If we take a man as he is, we make him worse, but if we take man as he should be we make him capable of becoming what he can be.
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.
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.
I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast.
As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
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.
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
