In this post, we’ll explore Viktor Frankl quotes, who was an Austrian psychiatrist, neurologist, and Holocaust survivor.
He was celebrated for his work in existential therapy and the development of logotherapy.
Viktor Frankl was born in Vienna in 1905 and studied medicine with a focus on psychiatry and neurology. His experiences in Nazi concentration camps during World War II greatly shaped his understanding of human resilience and the search for meaning.
Frankl’s most famous work, Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), recalls his painful experiences and outlines his belief that finding purpose is the key to enduring even the most challenging circumstances. His approach to logotherapy focuses on the fact that meaning can be discovered through work, love, and suffering.
Let’s read some of the best Viktor Frankl quotes on meaning, resilience, and the pursuit of purpose.
Best Viktor Frankl Quotes
1. “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
2. “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
3. “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose.”
4. “A human being is a deciding being.”
5. “To suffer unecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”
6. “Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.”
7. “No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
8. “It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Meaning
1. “When a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.”
2. “Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”
3. “For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person’s life at a given moment.”
4. “Faith is trust in ultimate meaning.”
5. “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”
6. “Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
7. “Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.”
8. “If you call ‘religious’ a man who believes in what I call a Supermeaning, a meaning so comprehensive that you can no longer grasp it, get hold of it in rational intellectual terminology, then one should feel free to call me religious, really.”
9. “Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself – be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter.”
10. “There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life.”
11. “Man is originally characterized by his “search for meaning” rather than his “search for himself.” The more he forgets himself—giving himself to a cause or another person—the more human he is. And the more he is immersed and absorbed in something or someone other than himself the more he really becomes himself.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Life
1. “The meaning of life is to give life meaning.”
2. “The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”
3. “Each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
4. “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the “why” for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any “how”.”
5. “Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives.”
6. “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.”
7. “In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”
8. “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 Frankl Quotes on Happiness
1. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
2. “It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.”
3. “Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
4. “Happiness should not, must not, and can never be a goal, but only an outcome.”
5. “One must have a reason to ‘be happy.’ Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically.”
6. “Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you. But if you turn your attention to other things, it comes and softly sits on your shoulder.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Purpose
1. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
2. “Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on.”
3. “A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the ‘why’ for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any ‘how.’”
4. “A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Hope
1. “When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
2. “Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”
3. “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.”
4. The prisoner who had lost faith in the future—his future—was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and became subject to mental and physical decay.”
5. “As long as we have hope, we have direction, the energy to move, and the map to guide us forward.”
6. “Each of us has his own inner concentration camp that we must battle against, a fight for hope and meaning.”
7. “Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.”
8. “Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Suffering
1. “If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be meaning in suffering.”
2. “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
3. “If there is a 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.”
4. “But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Success
1. “Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”
2. “For success, like happiness, is the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”
3. “Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue.”
4. “The attempt to develop a sense of meaning in life is the root of all mental health. The attempt to pursue success alone is often the cause of mental distress.”
5. “Ultimately, success will follow if we forget about it and dedicate ourselves to something meaningful.”
6. “Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Love
1. “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”
2. “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.”
3. “The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is.”
4. “No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
5. “The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
6. “Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Attitude
1.”Even in the darkest moments, we retain the freedom to choose our attitude.”
2. “The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”
3. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of human freedoms – to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
4. “I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”
5. “We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.”
6. “The pessimist resembles a man who observes with fear and sadness that his wall calendar, from which he daily tears a sheet, grows thinner with each passing day. ”
7. “For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
8. “As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Resilience
1. “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
2. “What is to give light must endure burning.”
3. “Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.”
4. “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
5. “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.”
6. “On the average, only those prisoners could keep alive who, after years of trekking from camp to camp, had lost all scruples in their fight for existence; they were prepared to use every means, honest and otherwise, even brutal force, theft, and betrayal of their friends, in order to save themselves. We who have come back, by the aid of many lucky chances or miracles – whatever one may choose to call them – we know: the best of us did not return.”
Viktor Frankl Quotes on Freedom
1. “It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”
2. “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.
3. “Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. Freedom is but the negative aspect of the whole phenomenon whose positive aspect is responsibleness. In fact, freedom is in danger of degenerating into mere arbitrariness unless it is lived in terms of responsibleness.”
4. “Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you become the plaything to circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity.”
These Viktor Frankl quotes remind us that even in the face of suffering, we have the power to choose our response and find meaning in life. His words continue to inspire us to cultivate resilience, purpose, and inner strength despite our circumstances.
Whether you’re facing challenges or simply seeking deeper understanding, these quotes offer timeless lessons on what it truly means to live with meaning.
Which of these Viktor Frankl quotes had an impact on you?
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