Quote

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing

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
Keys
Meaning
Health
Human
Humans
Flourishing
Quests
Quest
Mental

More quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

Image
A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
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
Image
I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most (and this applies to adults as much as to punished children) it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Despair is suffering without meaning.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
If architects want to strengthen a decrepit arch, they increase the load which is laid upon it, for thereby the parts are joined more firmly together. So if therapists wish to foster their patients' mental health, they should not be afraid to increase that load through a reorientation toward the meaning of one's life.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
I am absolutely convinced that the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Treblinka, and Maidanek were ultimately prepared not in some ministry or other in Berlin, but rather at the desks and in the lecture halls of nihilistic scientists and philosophers.
Viktor E. Frankl
Image
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
Image
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