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For what then matters is to bear witness to the uniquely human potential at its best, which is to transform a personal tragedy into a triumph, to turn one’s predicament into a human achievement.

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
Turn
Witness
Turns
Potential
Best
Bear
Human
Tragedy
Predicament
Humans
Achievement
Predicaments
Matter
Matters
Uniquely
Bears
Transform
Personal
Triumph

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children) it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
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No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.
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A man's concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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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Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.
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Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.
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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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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Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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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And I quoted from Nietzsche: That which does not kill me, makes me stronger.
Viktor E. Frankl
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I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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 E. Frankl
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Ultimately, we are not subject to the conditions that confront us rather, these conditions are subject to our decision ... we must decide whether we will face up or give in, whether or not we will let ourselves be determined by the conditions.
Viktor E. Frankl
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There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations. But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my defense mechanisms, nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my reaction formations.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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
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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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If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.
Viktor E. Frankl
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It is this spiritual freedom - which cannot be taken away - that makes life meaningful and purposeful.
Viktor E. Frankl