Man's Search For Meaning Quotes.

1. "To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be surprise enough for an outsider, but he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint trace of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes. Humor was another of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning

2. "First of all, there is a danger inherent in the teaching of man’s nothingbutness, the theory that man is nothing but the result of biological, psychological and sociological conditions, or the product of heredity and environment. Such a view of man makes a neurotic believe what he is prone to believe anyway, namely, that he is the pawn and victim of outer influences or inner circumstances. This neurotic fatalism is fostered and strengthened by a psychotherapy which denies that man is free. To be sure, a human being is a finite thing, and his freedom is restricted. It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning

3. "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! It seems to me that there is nothing which would"
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning

4. "Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions. Our"
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning

5. "When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

6. "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."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

7. "Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. 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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

8. "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

9. "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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

10. "Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."
- Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning