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We had to learn...that it did not really matter what we expected from life but rather what life expected from us.

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
Matter
Really
Life
Expected
Rather
Learn
Moments

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

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Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation.
Viktor E. Frankl
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I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
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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I never would have made it if I could not have laughed. It lifted me momentarily out of this horrible situation, just enough to make it livable.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Most important, however, is the third avenue to meaning in life: even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The struggle for existence is a struggle 'for' something it is purposeful and only in so being is it meaningful and able to bring meaning into life.
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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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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It said to me, 'I am here — I am here — I am life, eternal life.'
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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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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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.
Viktor E. Frankl
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The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
Viktor E. Frankl
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I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost.
Viktor E. Frankl
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No one can take from us the ability to choose our attitudes toward the circumstances in which we find ourselves. This is the last of human freedoms.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Logotherapy . . . considers man as a being whose main concern consists in fulfilling a meaning and in actualizing values, rather than in the mere gratification and satisfaction of drives and instincts.
Viktor E. Frankl
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Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide
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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One should not search for an abstract meaning of life ... Life can be made meaningful in a threefold way: first, through what we give to life ... second, by what we take from the world ... third, through the stand we take toward a fate we no longer can change.
Viktor E. Frankl