Viktor E. Frankl Quotes

...being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter. The more one forgets 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.... What is called self-actualization is not an attainable aim at all, for the simple reason that the more one would strive for it, the more he would miss it. In other words, self-actualization is possible only as a side-effect of self-transcendence.

the self expands through acts of self forgetfulness.

Joy can only be real if people look upon their life as a service and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness.

Everywhere in life, the true question is not what we gain, but what we do.

Each new day beckons you to walk on the road of self-transcendence. We transcend ourselves, we do not compete with others. We compete only with our previous achievements, and we get joy. Life is nothing but a perpetual possibility.

Doing nothing for others is the undoing of one's self. We must be purposely kind and generous, or we miss the best part of existence. The heart that goes out of itself, gets large and full of joy. This is the great secret of the inner life. We do ourselves the most good doing something for others.

What gives life its value if not its constant cry for self-transcendence?

Self-actualization cannot be attained if it is made an end in itself, but only as a side effect of self-transcendence.

Self-realization is a comedown from salvation, but still gives us something to hope for.

The purpose of life is to create your Self anew, in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are. It is to announce and become, express and fulfill, experience and know your true Self.

The aim of life is to be fully born, though its tragedy is that most of us die before we are thus born.

Finding your passion isn't just about careers and money. It's about finding your authentic self. The one you've buried beneath other people's needs.

If you wish to shine like day, burn up the night of self-existence. Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

We talk about self-expression but need to pause and remember that self-expression requires a self to express.

No art is sunk in the self, but rather, in art the self becomes self-forgetful in order to meet the demands of the thing seen and the thing being made.

So to conduct one's life as to realize oneself-this seems to me the highest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.

Ask yourself, 'what's more important - being real and being myself, or becoming successful? And ask the question knowing that you never actually have to choose between being real and being successful. You simply have to choose between being realand striving to be successful. Get the difference?

Success may or may not mean that you've acquired a lot. It does mean that you have become a generous person.

True happiness for human beings is possible only to those who develop their godlike potentialities to the utmost.

Some seekers will do anything for their Self-realisation - except work for it.

We are meant to discover our authentic nature-the state of being in which we are inspired by ourselves, turned on, lit up, and excited about who we are.

Whether deliberately, unconsciously or accidentally, she seems to have composed her own life so that its fitful, rudderless, and self-doubting first half was alchemized into gold when the austere bluestocking became the fallen woman.

My research offers impressive evidence that we feel better when we attempt to make our world better...to have a purpose beyond one's self lends to existence a meaning and direction - the most important characteristic of high well-being.

Her work, I really think her work is finding what her real work is and doing it, her work, her own work, her being human, her being in the world.