Viktor E. Frankl Quotes That Will Inspire You to Live Your Best Life

1. Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it Man's Search for Meaning

2. Don’t aim at success—the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. Man's Search for Meaning

3. Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance. Man's Search for Meaning

4. 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.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation. Man's Search for Meaning

5. Cách một người chấp nhận số phận và những đau khổ của mình, cách một người dám vượt qua những thử thách đó đem lại cho người ấy nhiều cơ hội để hiểu được ý nghĩa sâu xa hơn của cuộc sống ngay cả trong những hoàn cảnh khắc nghiệt nhất. Đi Tìm Lẽ Sống

6. Fue Lessing quien dijo en una ocasión: "Hay cosas que deben haceros perder la razón, o entonces es que no tenéis ninguna razón que perder." Ante una situación anormal, la reacción anormal constituye una conducta normal. El Hombre en Busca de Sentido

7. Fundamentally, therefore, any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him-mentally and spiritually. He may retain his human dignity even in a concentration camp. Dostoevski said once, "There is only one thing that I dread: not to be worthy of my sufferings."These words frequently came to my mind after I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost. It can be said that they were worthy of their sufferings; the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement. It is this spiritual freedom- which cannot be taken away- that makes life meaningful and purposeful. Man's Search for Meaning

8. Reality presents itself always in the form of a specific concrete situation, and since each life situation is unique, it follows that also the meaning of a situation must be unique. Therefore it would not even be possible for meanings to be transmitted through traditions. Only values– which might be defined as universal meanings— can be affected by the decay of traditions… to put it succinctly: the values are dead–long live the meanings. The Unheard Cry for Meaning

9. Tension, striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal are positive; trying to close the gap between what one is and what one should become. Man's Search for Meaning

10. The salvation of man is through love and in love Man's Search for Meaning

11. When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. Man's Search for Meaning

12. You are responsible for overcoming guilt by rising above it, by growing beyond yourselves, by changing for the better. Man's Search for Meaning