Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor E. Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy". His best-selling book Man's Search for Meaningchronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living. Frankl became one of the...
NationalityAustrian
ProfessionPsychologist
Date of Birth26 March 1905
CountryAustria
It is always important to have something yet to do in life.
Suffering presents us with a challenge: to find our goals and purpose in our lives that make even the worst situation worth living through.
Sunday neurosis, that kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.
Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.
The salvation of man is through love and in love.
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue.
Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life.
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.
Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.
Fear may come true that which one is afraid of.
Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human.
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.
...being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets himself—by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love—the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.... What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.
The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes.