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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

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Viktor E. Frankl
Age: 92 †
Born: 1905
Born: March 26
Died: 1997
Died: September 2
Existential Therapist
Neurologist
Professor
Psychiatrist
Psychologist
Psychotherapist
Surgeon
Writer
Vienna
Austria
Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl
Must
Ultimately
Men
Recognize
Life
Meaning
Asked
Challenges
Asks
Purpose
Rather

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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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
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Man's search for meaning is the primary motivation in his life and not a secondary rationalization of instinctual drives. This meaning is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone only then does it achieve a significance which will satisfy his own will to meaning.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
Viktor E. Frankl
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These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning in life in a general way.
Viktor E. Frankl
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No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Just as a small fire is extinguished by the storm whereas a large fire is enhanced by it - likewise a weak faith is weakened by predicament and catastrophes whereas a strong faith is strengthened by them.
Viktor E. Frankl
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In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.
Viktor E. Frankl
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God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies
Viktor E. Frankl
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There is also purpose in life which is almost barren of both creation and enjoyment and which admits of but one possibility of high moral behavior: namely, in man's attitude to his existence, an existence restricted by external forces.
Viktor E. Frankl
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A human being is not one thing among others things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes-within the limits of endowment and environment-he has made out of himself.
Viktor E. Frankl
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It isn't the past which holds us back, it's the future and how we undermine it, today.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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You can take away my wife, you can take away my children, you can strip me of my clothes and my freedom, but there is one thing no person can ever take away from me - and that is my freedom to choose how I will react to what happens to me!
Viktor E. Frankl
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When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task. . . . He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Austrian public-opinion pollsters recently reported that those held in highest esteem by most of the people interviewed are neither the great artists nor the great scientists, neither the great statesmen nor the great sport figures, but those who master a hard lot with their heads held high.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Pain from problems and disappointments, etc., is inevitable in life, but suffering is a choice determined by whether you choose to compare your experience and pain to something better and therefore feel unlucky and bitter or to something worse and therefore feel lucky and grateful!
Viktor E. Frankl
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It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
Viktor E. Frankl