568 Quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

As a professor in two fields, neurology and psychiatry, I am fully aware of the extent to which man is subject to biological, psychological and sociological conditions. But in addition to being a professor in two fields I am a survivor of four camps - concentration camps, that is - and as such I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

We dislike talking about our experiences. No explanations are needed for those who have been inside, and the others will understand neither how we felt then nor how we feel now.

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.

When we are not any lengthier capable to alter a predicament, we're challenged to alter ourselves

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

It is not freedom from conditions, but it is freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.

A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes - within the limits of endowment and environment- he has made out of himself. In the concentration camps, for example, in this living laboratory and on this testing ground, we watched and witnessed some of our comrades behave like swine while others behaved like saints. Man has both potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions.

The more one forgets one’s own self, the more human the person becomes.