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What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.

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
Character
Waiting
Potential
States
Call
Strive
Needs
Goal
Worthy
Men
State
Meaning
Discharge
Life
Happiness
Cost
Striving
Actually
Growth
Struggling
Rather
Struggle
Fulfilled
Change
Vision
Tension

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.
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Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features.
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It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
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The salvation of man is through love and in love.
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Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.
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Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.
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In psychiatry there is a certain condition known as delusion of reprieve. The condemned man, immediately before his execution, gets the illusion that he might be reprieved at the very last minute. No one could yet grasp the fact that everything would be taken away. all we possessed, literally, was our naked existence.
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Sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one's hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it.
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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.
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Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.
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Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in its 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.
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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 long run- in the long run, I say! - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
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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 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.
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The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.
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The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
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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.
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It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.
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A man who could not see the end of hisprovisional existence was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
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Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.
Viktor E. Frankl