Quote

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life.

Viktor E. Frankl

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Taught
Freud
Greatest
Quests
Pleasure
Quest
Power
Primarily
Persons
Task
Person
Believed
Find
Tasks
Adler
Life
Meaning
Alfred

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

Image
When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
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
Image
In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone's task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
The last of human freedoms - the ability to chose one's attitude especially an attitude of gratitude in a given set of circumstances especially in difficult circumstances.
Viktor E. Frankl