Quotes from Viktor E. Frankl

The more one forgives himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself.

Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death.

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

Religion is the search for ultimate meaning.

As such, I also bear witness to the unexpected extent to which man is capable of defying and braving even the worst conditions conceivable.

Ultimate freedom is a man's right to choose his attitude.

When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure.

Love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.

Man's search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life.

We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents...Sometimes the 'unfinisheds' are among the most beautiful symphonies.

Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.