In this post, we’ve collected for you the best Viktor Frankl quotes that can inspire and motivate you to find meaning in your life.
Viktor Frankl Short Biography
Born on 26 March 1905 in Vienna, Austria, Viktor E. Frankl was a famous Austrian psychiatrist and neurologist who spent his life helping people to find meaning through logotherapy, a psychological approach.
Viktor Emil Frankl is the originator of healing through meaning approach nammed as logotherapy and the writer of Man’s Search for Meaning (1946), which is one of the best selling classic memoirs.
Logotherapy is considered to be the third school of psychotherapy in Vienna, after Sigmund Freud’s school and Alfred Adler’s school.
Frank suffered from the miserable conditions of the Nazi camps, where he spent 3 long years of suffering from 1942 to 1945.
Although he lived in harsh and horrific conditions of Auschwitz, Frank learned from this experience how to find the main purpose in life.
When Frankl was seeing the brutality and terror in front of him, he concluded that people who had some meanings in thier lives had enough strength to survive.
7 Best Viktor Frankl Quotes
“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.” –Viktor E. Frankl
“Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
“When we are no longer able to change a situation – we are challenged to change ourselves.”
“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.”
“In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.”
“For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”
15 Quotes on The Meaning of Life by Viktor Frankl
“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
“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.”
“No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him.”
“Faith is trust in ultimate meaning.”
“Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”
“Even a genius cannot completely resist his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time.”
“Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time.”
“Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.”
“Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.”
“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.”
“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
“Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.”
“The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us.”
“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”
17 Quotes on Success & Purpose in Life
“View life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.” –Viktor E. Frankl
“You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it.”
“We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering.”
“Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is.”
“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.”
“Success is total self-acceptance.”
“Every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”
“The more one forgets himself – by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love – the more human he is.”
“The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing.”
“God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies.”
“Each of us carries a unique spark of the divine, and each of us is also an inseparable part of the web of life.”
“Pain is only bearable if we know it will end, not if we deny it exists.”
“Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”
“When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.”
“An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”
“Man’s inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”
“What is to give light must endure burning.”
11 Victor Frankl Quotes on Pain, Suffering & Life in Auschwitz
“When I was taken to the concentration camp of Auschwitz, a manuscript of mine ready for publication was confiscated. Certainly, my deep desire to write this manuscript anew helped me to survive the rigors of the camps I was in.” –Victor E. Frankl
“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.”
“To suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”
“We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.”
“At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most; it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all.”
“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 E. Frankl
“Despair is suffering without meaning.”
“I do the unpleasant tasks before I do the pleasant ones.”
“Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.”
“When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer… his unique opportunity lies in the way he bears his burden.”
“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
Latest Thoughts
The above Viktor Frankl quotes remind us that life is not just about being happy and successful, but it is also about finding meaning and purpose from the journey that we take in life.
These Viktor Frankl words motivate us to have total control on our own lives and to look for anything to be happy, even in the moments of adversity.
He encourages us to keep fighting until we start living a meaningful life.
These quotes by Viktor Frankl can offer us valuable life lessons such as:
Find meaning in every situation.
Adopt a positive attitude.
Embrace personal responsibility.
Focus on the important things in life.
Live with good intentions.
The wisdom of Viktor Frankl continues to influence people through his books and quotes. His thoughts about the human experience will continue to inspire generations to come to find more meaning in this life.
