568 Quotes by Viktor E. Frankl

Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.

Being human always points, and is directed, to something or someone, other than oneself - be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter.

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

Since Auschwitz, we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima, we know what is at stake.

In a position of utter desolation, when man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way - an honorable way - in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.'

A painter tries to convey to us a picture of the world as he sees it; an ophthalmologist tries to enable us to see the world as it really is. The logotherapist's role consists of widening and broadening the visual field of the patient so that the whole spectrum of potential meaning becomes conscious and visible to him.

We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread.

Even a genius cannot completely resist his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time.