Viktor Frankl

"It is true, Logotherapy, deals with the Logos; it deals with Meaning. Specifically I see Logotherapy in helping others to see meaning in life. But we cannot “give” meaning to the life of others. And if this is true of meaning per se, how much does it hold for Ultimate Meaning?"

"Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness."

"Maslow's psychology, firmly based upon Freud and Watson, simply points out that the optimistic side of the picture has been overlooked; the deterministic laws of our 'lower nature' hold sway in their won field; but there are other laws. Man's freedom is a reality -- a reality that makes a difference to his physical, as well as his mental health. When Frankl's prisoners ceased to believe in the possibility of freedom, they grew sick and died. On the other hand, when they saw that Dachau had no chimney, standing out all night in the rain seemed no great hardship; they laughed and joked. The conclusion needs to be stated in letters ten feet high. In order to realise his possibilities, man must believe in an open future; he must have a vision of something worth doing. And this will not be possible until all the determinism and pessimism that we have inherited from the 19th century -- and which has infected every department of our culture, from poetry to atomic physics -- has been dismissed as fallacious and illogical. Twentieth century science, philosophy, politics, literature -- even music -- has been constructed upon a weltanschauung that leaves half of human nature out of account."

"Frankl writes: "There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one's life." Those most likely to survive the camps, Frankl tells us, were those who had a reason to keep fighting to live-a loved one, God, socialism, a vision of a future world they were fighting for. They saw a reason to keep going, so they took agency, even if only in tiny ways-like searching hard for that extra calorie to make it through one more day. Frankl writes: "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.""

"You may of course ask whether we really need to refer to "saints." Wouldn't it suffice just to refer to decent people? It is true that they form a minority. More than that, they always will remain a minority. And yet I see therein the very challenge to join the minority. For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. So, let us be alert — alert in a twofold sense: Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake."

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

"The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the suffering it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity — even under the most difficult circumstances — to add a deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified and unselfish. Or in the bitter fight for self-preservation he may forget his human dignity and become no more than an animal. Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not."

"A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth — that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. … For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.""

"There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions, as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life."

"If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death."

"An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. p. 32 in the 1992 edition, , Beacon Press"

"Wir alle, die wir durch tausend und abertausend glückliche Zufälle oder Gotteswunder – wie immer man es nennen will – mit dem Leben davongekommen sind, wir wissen es und können es ruhig sagen: die Besten sind nicht zurückgekommen (Hervorhebung des Autors)."

"… in den Worten von Nietzsche ‚Wer ein Warum zu leben hat, erträgt fast jedes Wie.’ Man musste also den Lagerinsassen, sofern sich hie und da einmal die Gelegenheit hierzu bot, das ‚Warum’ ihres Lebens, ihr Lebensziel, bewusst machen, um so zu erreichen, dass sie auch dem furchtbaren ‚Wie’ des gegenwärtigen Daseins, den Schrecken des Lagerlebens, innerlich gewachsen waren und standhalten konnten."

"Wer von denen, die das Konzentrationslager erlebt haben, wüßte nicht von jenen Menschengestalten zu erzählen, die da über die Appellplätze oder durch die Baracken des Lagers gewandelt sind, hier ein gutes Wort, dort den letzten Bissen Brot spendend? Und mögen es auch nur wenige gewesen sein – sie haben Beweiskraft dafür, daß man dem Menschen im Konzentrationslager alles nehmen kann, nur nicht: die letzte menschliche Freiheit, sich zu den gegebenen Verhältnissen so oder so einzustellen. Und es gab ein »So oder so« (Hervorhebung des Autors)!"

"Wie oft sind es erst die Ruinen, die den Blick freigeben auf den Himmel."

"Sinn muß gefunden, kann aber nicht erzeugt werden."

"Sinn kann nicht gegeben, sondern muss gefunden werden."

"Mensch sein heißt ja niemals, nun einmal so und nicht anders sein müssen, Mensch sein heißt immer, immer auch anders werden können."

""Tatsächlich ist die Freiheit die halbe Wahrheit. Freisein ist der negative Aspekt eines Phänomens, dessen positiver Aspekt Verantwortlichsein heißt. Freiheit schlägt in Willkür um, wenn sie nicht im Sinne von Verantwortlichkeit gelebt wird. Und das ist auch der Grund, warum ich dafür zu plädieren pflege, daß der Freiheitsstatue an der Ostküste das Pendant errichtet werde, nämlich eine der Verantwortlichkeit an der Westküste." Frankl, V. E. (1979). Der Mensch vor der Frage nach dem Sinn. (n.p.): Piper, S. 64"

""Es gibt nichts auf der Welt, das einen Menschen so sehr befähigte, äußere Schwierigkeiten oder innere Beschwerden zu überwinden,"

"Eine allgemein gültige, für alle verbindliche Lebensaufgabe muß uns in existenzanalytischem Aspekt eigentlich unmöglich erscheinen. In dieser Sicht ist die Frage nach »der« Aufgabe im Leben, nach »dem« Sinn des Lebens – sinnlos. Sie müßte uns vorkommen, wie etwa die Frage eines Reporters, der einen Schach-Weltmeister interviewt: »Und nun sagen Sie, verehrter Meister – welches ist der beste Schachzug?«"

"Die geistige Freiheit des Menschen, die man ihm bis zum letzten Atemzug nicht nehmen kann, läßt ihn auch noch bis zum letzten Atemzug Gelegenheit finden, sein Leben sinnvoll zu gestalten.(Hervorhebung des Autors)!"

""Die Aufgabe wechselt nicht nur von Mensch zu Mensch"

"Der Nationalsozialismus hat den Rassenwahn aufgebracht. In Wirklichkeit gibt es aber nur zwei Menschenrassen, nämlich die "Rasse" der anständigen Menschen und die "Rasse" der unanständigen Menschen. Und die "Rassentrennung" verläuft quer durch alle Nationen und innerhalb jeder einzelnen Nation quer durch alle Parteien."