Top 25 Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

Words matter. These are the best Viktor E. Frankl Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of an

No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.
Viktor E. Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl
Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.
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.
Viktor E. Frankl
Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Viktor E. Frankl
In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.
Viktor E. Frankl
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.
Viktor E. Frankl
Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.
Viktor E. Frankl
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.
Viktor E. Frankl
Faith is trust in ultimate meaning.
Viktor E. Frankl
Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.
Viktor E. Frankl
For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.
Viktor E. Frankl
Even a genius cannot completely resist his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time.
Viktor E. Frankl
To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to ‘be happy.’ But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’
Viktor E. Frankl
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
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. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete.
Viktor E. Frankl
When I was taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, a manuscript of mine ready for publication was confiscated. Certainly, my deep desire to write this manuscript anew helped me to survive the rigors of the camps I was in.
Viktor E. Frankl
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
Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
Viktor E. Frankl
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
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
Viktor E. Frankl
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
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
The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is.
Viktor E. Frankl
A human being is a deciding being.
Viktor E. Frankl