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What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms.

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
Bear
Demanded
Bears
Existential
Terms
Unconditional
Teach
Philosophers
Term
Grasp
Rather
Philosopher
Men
Rational
Meaningfulness
Life
Endure
Incapacity

More quotes by 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.
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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!
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Usually, to be sure, man considers only the stubble field of transitoriness and overlooks the full granaries of the past, wherein he had salvaged once and for all his deeds, his joys and also his sufferings. Nothing can be undone, and nothing can be done away with. I should say having been is the surest kind of being.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected.
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Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life.
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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Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.
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The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear anymore—except his God.
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Despair is suffering without meaning.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering
Viktor E. Frankl
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View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn't
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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Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Sports allow men to build up situations of emergency. What he then demands of himself is unnecessary achievement - and unnecessary sacrifice. He artificially creates the tension that he has been spared by affluent society.
Viktor E. Frankl
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When we are not any lengthier capable to alter a predicament, we're challenged to alter ourselves
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.
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Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these are things which cannot inspire envy.
Viktor E. Frankl
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God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies
Viktor E. Frankl
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How can we dare to predict the behavior of man? We may predict the movements of a machine, of an automaton more than this, we many even try to predict the mechanisms or dynamisms of the human psyche as well. But man is more than psyche.
Viktor E. Frankl
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No one can take away my freedom to choose how I will react.
Viktor E. Frankl