Man S Search For Meaning Quotes

“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.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.
These tasks, and therefore the meaning of life, differ from man to man, and from moment to moment. Thus it is impossible to define the meaning of life in a general way. Questions about the meaning of life can never be answered by sweeping statements. “Life” does not mean something vague, but something very real and concrete, just as life’s tasks are also very real and concrete. They form man’s destiny, which is different and unique for each individual. No man and no destiny can be compared with any other man or any other destiny. No situation repeats itself, and each situation calls for a different response. Sometimes the situation in which a man finds himself may require him to shape his own fate by action. At other times it is more advantageous for him to make use of an opportunity for contemplation and to realize assets in this way. Sometimes man may be required simple to accept fate, to bear his cross. Every situation is distinguished by its uniqueness, and there is always only one right answer to the problem posed by the situation at hand.
When a man finds that it is his destiny to suffer, he will have to accept his suffering as his task; his single and unique task. He will have to acknowledge the fact that even in suffering he is unique and alone in the universe. No one can relieve him of his suffering or suffer in his place. His unique opportunity lies in the way in which he bears his burden.”
― Viktor Frankl

“From all this we may learn that there are two races of men in this world, but only these two — the “race” of the decent man and the “race” of the indecent man. Both are found everywhere; they penetrate into all groups of society. No group consists entirely of decent or indecent people.”
― Victor Frankel

“We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We need to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—hourly and daily. Our answer must consist not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answers to its problems and to fulfill the task which it constantly sets for each individual.”
― Viktor Frankl

“It is here that we encounter the
central theme of existentialism:
to live is to suffer, to survive is to
find meaning in the suffering. If
there is a purpose in life at all,
there must be a purpose in suffering and in dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself,
and must accept the responsibility
that his answer prescribes.”
― Gordon W. Allport

“A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes--within the limits of endowment and environment--he has made out of himself.”
― Viktor Frankl

“I was so sick that I found myself worrying about the future of man's soul, my own in particular.”
― Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters

“... to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering. If there is a purpose in life at all, there must be a purpose in suffering and dying. But no man can tell another what this purpose is. Each must find out for himself, and must accept the responsibility that his answer prescribes. If he succeeds he will continue to grow in spite of all indignities.”
― Gordon Allport

“But even one such example is sufficient proof that man's inner strength may raise him above his outward fate.”
― Viktor E. Frankl

“Sometimes it's not what you do differently it's what you do consistently.

I approached solving my life’s problems from many different angles. I used to try to be perfect, not in the literal sense, but coasting right below in that realistic level of high performance. That was my desire. It did not happen though, yet that desire did not die. Ironically, as I fell into deeper adversity, it grew. As I dug for China, I knew the comeback would make the suffering worth it. It’s like what Viktor E. Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning, “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.” I felt the meaning for my self imposed suffering was the honorable character I would later possess; it had to be.”
― Dexter A. Daniels, Consistent, Not Different: Why We Stray from the Path and Reasons to Return

“Even now, when I have time to consider what I've been and what I am, I doubt I comprehend my humanity, if I can claim so grand a word for my own morsel of life. I might as well be a meteor of a man, for all the difference I've made on earth.”
― Norman Lock, American Meteor

“Some people are each bored to death by the unchallengingness of their life.”
― Mokokoma Mokhonoana