Viktor Frankl Stimulus Quotes

One day, naked and alone in a small room, he began to become aware of what he later called "the last of the human freedoms" - the freedom his Nazi captors could not take away. They could control his entire environment, they could do what they wanted to his body, but Viktor Frankl himself was a self-aware being who could look as an observer at his very involvement. His basic identity was intact. He could decide within himself how all of this was going to affect him. Between what happened to him, or the stimulus, and his response to it, was his freedom or power to choose that response. ~ Stephen R. Covey

For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Between stimulus and response is the freedom to choose. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Frankl wondered whether "there may be such a thing as autobibliotherapy - healing through reading." Frankl's ~ Viktor E. Frankl

An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Every therapy must in some way, no matter how restricted, also be logotherapy. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When man can't find meaning in his life, he distracts himself with pleasure. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Life in a concentration camp tore open the human soul and exposed its depths. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

There were enough examples, often of a heroic nature, which proved that apathy could be overcome, irritability suppressed. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

He who knows the 'Why' for his existence is able to bear almost any 'How'. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The immediate influence of behavior is always more effective than that of words. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Not about cruelty or pain, but about the insult connected with it. That ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man's search for meaning is the chief motivation of his life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Nietzsche: "He who has a Why to live for can bear almost any How." He ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitudes. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory." In ~ Viktor E. Frankl

If one cannot change a situation that causes his suffering, he can still choose his attitude. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Fear brings about that which one is afraid of, and hyper-intention makes impossible what one wishes ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Though it may afford momentary psychological relief, it is an illusion which physiologically, surely, must not be without danger. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Honor thy father and thy mother that thy days may be long upon the land. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I mentioned earlier how everything that was not connected with the immediate task of keeping oneself and one's closest friends alive lost its value. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Happiness must ensue. It cannot be pursued ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The most painful part of the beatings is the insult which they imply. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Nothing is likely to help a person overcome or endure troubles than the consciousness of having a task in life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man can only find meaning for his existence in something outside himself. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

For tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. Only ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The existential vacuum manifests itself mainly in a state of boredom. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When a man cannot find meaning, he numbs himself with pleasure. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The meaning of our existence is not invented by ourselves, but rather detected. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When a person can't find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man's last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is always important to have something yet to do in life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man ultimately decides for himself! And in the end, education must be education towards the ability to decide ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Strangely enough, a blow which does not even find its mark can, under certain circumstance, hurt more than one that finds its mark ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Is that theory true which would have us believe that man is no more than a product of many conditional and environmental factors - ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The neurotic who learns to laugh at himself may be on the way to self-management, perhaps to cure.11 ~ Viktor E. Frankl

there are moments when indignation can rouse even a seemingly hardened prisoner-indignation not about cruelty or pain, but about the insult connected with it. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

He describes poignantly the prisoners who gave up on life, who had lost all hope for a future and were inevitably the first to die. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The consciousness of one's inner value is anchored in higher, more spiritual things, and cannot be shaken by camp life. But how many free men, let alone prisoners, possess it? ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

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. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One ~ Viktor E. Frankl

[U]ntil his last breath no one can wrest from a man his freedom to take one or another attitude toward his destiny. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

At any moment, man must decide, for better or for worse, what will be the monument of his existence. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Psychologically, what was happening to the liberated prisoners could be called "depersonalization." Everything appeared unreal, unlikely, as in a dream. We could not believe it was true. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is our responsibility to look for meaning in life, even in the darkest times, and whatever the circumstances we always have a vestige of free will. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man's main concern is not to gain pleasure or to avoid pain but rather to see a meaning in his life. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Woe to him who saw no more sense in his life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The quest for meaning is the key to mental health and human flourishing ~ Viktor E. Frankl

know that without the suffering, the growth that I have achieved would have been impossible." Is ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The point is not what we expect from life, but rather what life expects from us. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

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. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I was horrified, but this was just as well, because step by step we had to become accustomed to a terrible and immense horror. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs." "That ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A sound philosophy of life, I think, may be the most valuable asset for a psychiatrist to have when he is treating a patient. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

The meaning of life is to give life meaning. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

This intensification of inner life helped the prisoner find a refuge from the emptiness, desolation and spiritual poverty of his existence, by letting him escape into the past. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

No one has the right to do wrong, even if wrong has been done to them. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

For in every case man retains the freedom and the possibility of deciding for or against the influence of his surroundings. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

There are only two races, the decent and the indecent. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Once an individual's search for meaning is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A man's character became involved to the point that he was caught in a mental turmoil which threatened all the values he held and threw them into doubt. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He ~ Viktor E. Frankl

But the prisoner who had passed into the second stage of his psychological reactions did not avert his eyes any more. By then his feelings were blunted, and he watched unmoved. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Despair is suffering without meaning. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When we are not any lengthier capable to alter a predicament, we're challenged to alter ourselves ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Now, it is my contention that the deneuroticization of humanity requires a rehumanization of psychotherapy. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Set me like a seal upon thy heart, love is as strong as death ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Every age has its own collective neurosis, and every age needs its own psychotherapy to cope with it. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Such a value system might be responsible for the fact that the burden of unavoidable unhappiness is increased by unhappiness about being unhappy. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

They died less from lack of food or medicine than from lack of hope, lack of something to live for. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

When the impossibility of replacing a person is realized, it allows the responsibility which a man has for his existence and its continuance to appear in all its magnitude. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

It is true that we can see the therapist as a technician only if we have first viewed the patient as some sort of machine. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time - inner time - which is a result of their unemployed state. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Sleep [is like] a dove which has landed near one's hand and stays there as long as one does not pay any attention to it. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

You don't create your mission in life - you detect it. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Even a genius cannot completely resist his Zeitgeist, the spirit of his time. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Our greatest human freedom is that, despite whatever our physical situation is in life, WE ARE ALWAYS FREE TO CHOOSE OUR THOUGHTS! ~ Viktor E. Frankl

An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being. This is my psychiatric credo. Without it I should not think it worthwhile to be a psychiatrist. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

A human being is a deciding being. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

Freedom, however, is not the last word. Freedom is only part of the story and half of the truth. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

In his creative work the artist is dependent on sources and resources deriving from the spiritual unconscious. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

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

What is demanded of man is not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

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. ~ Viktor E. Frankl

But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer. ~ Viktor E. Frankl