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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
Concern
Disease
Means
Mean
Even
Existential
Men
Distress
Life
Mental
Despair

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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The incurable sufferer is given very little opportunity to be proud of his suffering and to consider it ennobling rather than degrading so that he is not only unhappy, but also ashamed of being unhappy.
Viktor E. Frankl
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View life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.
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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As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.
Viktor E. Frankl
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It is always important to have something yet to do in life.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness. That is why I recommend that the Statue of Liberty on the East Coast be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the West Coast.
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
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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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Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
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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Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.
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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Our attitude towards what has happened to us in life is the important thing to recognize. Once hopeless, my life is now hope-full, but it did not happen overnight. The last of human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, is to choose one's own way.
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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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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No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.
Viktor E. Frankl
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When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.
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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Success is total self-acceptance.
Viktor E. Frankl