Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

To be sure, the term, will to power, was coined by Nietzsche rather than Adler, and the term, will to pleasure—standing for Freud's pleasure principle—is my own and not Freud's.

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

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!

The question which beset me was, "Has all this suffering, this dying around us, a meaning? For, if not, then ultimately there is no meaning to survival; for a life whose meaning depends upon such a happenstance—as whether one escapes or not—ultimately would not be worth living at all.

Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure, as Freud believed, or a quest for power, as Alfred Adler taught, but a quest for meaning. The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to

A man who for years had thought he had reached the absolute limit of all possible suffering now found that suffering had no limits, and that he could suffer still more, and more intensely.

And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.

Suffering in and of itself is meaningless, we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.

The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it.

The meaning of my life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.

Logos is deeper than logic.

As long as a man is still motivated either by the fear of punishment or by the hope of reward—or, for that matter, by the wish to appease the superego—conscience has not had its say as yet.