Viktor Frankl quotes

Viktor Frankl was an Austrian neurologist, psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor who founded the school of logotherapy. Best known for his book "Man's Search for Meaning", he emphasized the importance of finding purpose in life, even in the face of suffering. Frankl's work continues to inspire individuals to overcome adversity and find meaning in challenging situations. Learn more about Viktor Frankl and his groundbreaking approach to psychology.

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 Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire…The salvation of man is through love and in love.

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor 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 Frankl

Man is originally characterized by his 'search for meaning' rather than his 'search for himself'. The more he forgets himself — giving himself to a cause or another person — the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself.

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

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 Frankl

Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

- Viktor Frankl

I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsablity on the West Coast.

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

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 Frankl

Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.

- Viktor Frankl

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.

- Viktor Frankl

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

- Viktor Frankl

The meaning of life is to give life meaning.

- Viktor Frankl

Our greatest freedom is the freedom to choose our attitude.

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.

- Viktor Frankl

The last of human freedoms—the ability to choose one’s attitude in a given set of circumstances.

- Viktor Frankl

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 Frankl

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

- Viktor Frankl

As to the causation of the feeling of meaninglessness, one may say, albeit in an oversimplifying vein, that people have enough to live by but nothing to live for; they have the means but no meaning.

- Viktor Frankl

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 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 Frankl