Quotes of Viktor E. Frankl - somelinesforyou

“ 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

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

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ 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

“ 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

“ 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

“ It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. On the other hand, the person who attacks the problems of life actively is like a man who removes each successive leaf from his calendar and files it neatly and carefully away with its predecessors, after first having jotted down a few diary notes on the back. He can reflect with pride and joy on all the richness set down in these notes, on all the life he has already lived to the fullest. What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees, or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? No, thank you,' he will think. 'Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, although these are things which cannot inspire envy. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ By declaring that man is responsible and must actualize the potential meaning of his life, I wish to stress that the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as though it were a closed system. I have termed this constitutive characteristic "the selftranscendence of human existence." It denotes the fact that being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneselfbe it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himselfby giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to lovethe more human he is and the more he actualizes himself. What is called selfactualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, selfactualization is possible only as a sideeffect of selftranscendence. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ 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

“ Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of himmentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings." These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom which cannot be taken away that makes life meaningful and purposeful. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ 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

“ 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 byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the longrun—in the longrun, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it ”

- 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.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation. ”

- Viktor E. 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 byproduct of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the longrun—in the longrun, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it ”

- Viktor E. 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. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ أن ماهو متوقع من الحياة ليس في واقع الامر هو موضع الاهمية ، بل أن ما يعنينا هو ما الذي تتوقعه الحياة منا ”

- Viktor E. 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 E. Frankl

“ كان يوجه السؤال التالي: "لماذا لم تنتحر"؟ و من إجابتهم يهديه إلى علاجه النفسي: ففي حياة البعض، كان هذا الخط هو الحب الذي يربط الشخص بأبنائه؛ و في حياة البعض الآخر، كانت هي الموهبة التى عليه أن يستخدمها؛ و بالنسبة للبعض الثالث، ربما كانت هي الذكريات التى تستحق الاستبقاء. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ The Latin word finis has two meanings: the end or the finish, and a goal to reach. A man who could not see the end of his "provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life. He ceased living for the future, in contrast to a man in normal life. Therefore the whole structure of his inner life changed; signs of decay set in which we know from other areas of life. The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed timeinner time which is a result of their unemployed state. Prisoners, too, suffered from this strange "timeexperience." In camp, a small time unit, a day, for example, filled with hourly tortures and fatigue, appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. My comrades agreed when I said that in a camp a day lasted longer than a week. ”

- 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

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

- Viktor E. Frankl

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

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ Being tolerant does not mean that I share another ones belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another ones right to believe, and obey, his own conscience. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ Being tolerant does not mean that I share another ones belief. But it does mean that I acknowledge another ones right to believe, and obey, his own conscience. ”

- 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

“ Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl

“ What is to give light must endure the burning. ”

- Viktor E. Frankl
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