Top 80+ Man's Search For Meaning Quotes By Viktor Frankl

Victor Frankl was an Austrian psychologist who survived a concentration camp.

'Man's Search for Meaning' is a book that covers his ruminations on life, god, and the process of meaning-making. If you are interested in quotes from this book, why not take a look at Viktor Frankl and Torah quotes?

Victor Frankl was a holocaust survivor. After being freed, he not only wrote the book 'Man's Search for Meaning' - but also came up with the psychological school of logotherapy. Logotherapy literally comes from "Logos" (meaning 'word' or 'thought' in Greek) implying that it treated mental ailments through the process of meaning-making. This thought process is evident in most of his quotes.

1. "That kind of depression which afflicts people who become aware of the lack of content in their lives when the rush of the busy week is over and the void within themselves becomes manifest.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

2. At such a moment, it is not the physical pain which hurts the most; it is the mental agony caused by the injustice, the unreasonableness of it all."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

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

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

4. "God is the partner of your most intimate soliloquies."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

5. “Once man's search for meaning of life is successful, it not only renders him happy but also gives him the capability to cope with suffering.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

6. "I recommend that the Statue of Liberty be supplemented by a Statue of Responsibility on the west coast."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

7. “When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

8. “What is to give light must endure burning.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

9. “I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

10. “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 Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

11. “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

12. “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.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

13. “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

14. "We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life - and instead think of ourselves who were questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist in right conduct."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

15. “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.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

16. "Man does not simply  exist but always decides what his existence will be."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

17. “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 Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

18. "The attempt to develop a sense of humor and to see things in a humorous light is some kind of a trick learned while mastering the art of living."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

19. "If you call ‘religious’ a man who believes in what I call a Supermeaning, a meaning so comprehensive that you can no longer grasp it, get hold of it in rational intellectual terminology, then one should feel free to call me religious, really.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

20. "If you dedicate yourself to a cause, they say success will follow."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

21. “For the world is in a bad state, but everything will become still worse unless each of us does his best.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

22. There is nothing conceivable which would so condition a man a to leave him without the slightest freedom.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

 23. “An abnormal reaction to an abnormal situation is normal behavior.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

24. “How could I have interpreted such a ‘coincidence’ other than as a challenge to live my thoughts instead of merely putting them on paper?”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

25. “Only slowly could these men be guided back to the commonplace truth that no one has the right to do wrong, not even if wrong has been done to them.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

26. “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

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

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

28. “Every human being has the ability to change at an instant.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

29. “Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as an unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

30. "Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

31. “Even the helpless victim of a hopeless situation, facing a fate he cannot change, may rise above himself, may grow beyond himself, and by so doing change himself. He may turn a personal tragedy into a triumph.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

A concentration camp is not an easy place to be. We too, face many a situation we are challenged in. But just like Victor Frankl, we too must rise above our sufferings to find meaning in life. These 'Man's Search for Meaning' quotes are the perfect gateway into a higher mindset.

32. "View life as a series of movie frames, the ending and meaning may not be apparent until the very end of the movie, and yet, each of the hundreds of individual frames has meaning within the context of the whole movie.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

33. "Even when it is not fully attained, we become better by striving for a higher goal."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

34. “In some ways suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment, it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

35. “No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

36. “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitudes.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

37. “Suffering unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

38. "Challenging the meaning of life is the truest expression of the state of being human."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

39. “It is not freedom from conditions, but it is the freedom to take a stand toward the conditions.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

 40. “So 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!"

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

41. "Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

42. “A man’s concern, even his despair, over the worthwhileness of life is an existential distress but by no means a mental disease.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

43. "Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

44. "There is nothing in the world, I venture to say, that would so effectively help one to survive even the worst conditions as the knowledge that there is a meaning in one’s life."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

45. “It is, therefore, up to the patient to decide whether he should interpret his life task as being responsible to society or to his own conscience.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

46. “There are things which must cause you to lose your reason or you have none to lose”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

47. "By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

48. “The meaning of life is to help others find the meaning of theirs.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

49. "By his love, he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

50. "No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

51. “The crowning experience of all, for the homecoming man, is the wonderful feeling that, after all, he has suffered, there is nothing he need fear any more—except his God."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

52. "Asked in a word, each man is questioned by life daily; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

53. "There are two races of men in this world - the decent man and the indecent man."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

54. “For, in the past, nothing is irretrievably lost but everything irrevocably stored and treasured.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

55. “Fear makes come true that which one is afraid of.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

56. "It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

57. “Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

58. “Human kindness can be found in all groups, even those which as a whole it would be easy to condemn.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

59. “Man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

60. "In the long run I say - success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

61. “Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and of love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even things of which I am most proud, though these are the things which cannot inspire envy.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

62. "If there is a meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death, human life cannot be complete."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

When we are no longer able to change our circumstances, we must accept them, and learn from them. This was the mindset of Victor Frankl - who believed that success like happiness cannot be achieved. It must happen on its own. We, with these 'Man's Search for Meaning' quotes, hope that you can take away a better understanding of the human mind and the various idiosyncrasies of life.

63. "...what they considered 'very important' to them now, 16 percent of the students checked 'making a lot of money'; 78 percent said their first goal was 'finding a purpose and meaning to my life'.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

64. “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,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

65. “Thus, it can be seen that mental health is based on a cartoon degree of tension, the tension between what one has already achieved and what one still ought to accomplish, or the gap between what one is and what one should become”.

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.  

66. "But today’s society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently, it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

67. "It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future – sub specie aeternitatis. And that in his salvation in the most difficult moments of his existence, although he sometimes has to force his mind to the task."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

68. "Faith is trust in ultimate meaning."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

69. "We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: 1. by doing a deed; 2. by experiencing a value; and 3. by suffering."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

70. “The truth-that love is the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

71. "The prisoner who had lost faith in the future – his future – was doomed. With his loss of belief in the future, he also lost his spiritual hold; he let himself decline and become subject to mental and physical decay."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

72. “But everything great is just as difficult to realize as it is rare to find”.

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

73. “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 ‘unfinished’ are among the most beautiful symphonies.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

74. “Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

75. “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 Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

76. “It is a peculiarity of man that he can only live by looking to the future.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

 77. “Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

78. “Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

79. “As for the concept of collective guilt, I personally think that it is totally unjustified to hold one person responsible for the behavior of another person or a collective of persons.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

80. "The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

81. "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."  

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

82. "Decisions, not conditions, determine what a man is."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

83. "The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her own life."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

84. "You don’t create your mission in life – you detect it."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

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

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

86. "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."

-Viktor Frankl,  'Man's Search for Meaning'.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for 'Man's Search for Meaning' quotes then why not take a look at William James quotes, or Soulful quotes.