Viktor Frankl Quotes

On surviving a brutal stretch of work by holding onto its purpose:

Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.

On adjusting to a diagnosis that will not go away:

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.

On keeping your dignity through a layoff you did not choose:

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

On what a caregiving season is costing you and what it is building:

What is to give light must endure burning.

On finding a reason to keep going after a miscarriage:

In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.

On feeling directionless in your twenties:

Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked.

On owning your response to a diagnosis you cannot control:

Man is not free from conditions. But he is free to take a stand in regard to them.

On breaking a pattern your family assumed was inherited:

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.

On why retirement without a new purpose feels like free fall:

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon lost.

On breaking a bad habit you have promised to quit before:

Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now.

Deciding whether to invest more deeply in truly knowing a partner:

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.

Choosing to open up to someone instead of staying guarded:

The salvation of man is through love and in love.

Weighing whether to chase a title or commit to meaningful work:

Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.

Deciding whether to redefine what counts as career success:

For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue.

Facing a demand life has placed on you that you did not choose:

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.

Deciding whether to forgive yourself for how you coped under pressure:

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

Choosing how to carry a loss you cannot undo:

To live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.

On staying in a hard job that still feels meaningful:

Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.