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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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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
Men
Distress
Life
Mental
Despair
Concern
Disease
Means
Mean
Even
Existential

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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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 E. Frankl
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Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes... Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.
Viktor E. Frankl
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But my mind clung to my wife's image, imagining it with an uncanny acuteness. I heard her answering me, saw her smile, her frank and encouraging look. Real or not, her look then was more luminous than the sun which was beginning to rise.
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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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Somewhere I heard a victorious Yes in answer to my question of the existence of ultimate purpose.
Viktor E. Frankl
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There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Either belief in God is unconditional or it is no belief at all.
Viktor E. Frankl
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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The transitoriness of our existence in now way makes it meaningless. But it does constitute our responsibleness for everything hinges upon our realizing the essentially transitory possibilities.
Viktor E. Frankl
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I would say that our patients never really despair because of any suffering in itself! Instead, their despair stems in each instance from a doubt as to whether suffering is meaningful. Man is ready and willing to shoulder any suffering as soon and as long as he can see a meaning in it.
Viktor E. Frankl
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A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the why for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any how.
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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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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In times of crisis, people reach for meaning. Meaning is strength. Our survival may depend on our seeking and finding it.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal.
Viktor E. Frankl