Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, was an Austrian-born neurologist, psychiatrist, and, more famously, survivor of the Nazi Holocaust during World War 2.

As a psychiatrist, he’s best known for developing a therapeutic approach to mental health called logotherapy, which is based on the premise that the primary driving force in human nature is to find meaning in life. Through meaning, we find growth, happiness, and freedom.

Frankl’s work was deeply influenced by his harrowing experiences in the Nazi concentration camps during World War 2 and the observations he made of his fellow prisoners. Specifically, some seemed to shoulder the hardship, while others crumbled under the weight of it.

Man’s Search for Meaning:

This book is perhaps Viktor Frankl’s most famous work. I’ve gifted it half a dozen times to friends, and since its publication in 1946, it’s helped thousands of people build resilience and find a better way to live or, at least, think about life. The book is divided into two parts:

  1. Experiences in a Concentration Camp: In this first part, Frankl reflects on his experience as a prisoner in Nazi concentration camps, including the infamous Auschwitz. He describes the unimaginable conditions, the constant fear of death, and the psychological torment and depression that he and his fellow inmates faced on a daily basis. In this section, Frankl also reflects on the psychology of the people around him and the guards who oversee them. He observes that those who could find some meaning or purpose in their suffering were far more likely to survive when compared to those who had given in to despair. He writes about the different ways people tried to find meaning, from dreaming of loved ones to holding onto a vision of the future.

  2. Logotherapy in a Nutshell: In the second section, Frankl provides a brief summary of logotherapy, his therapeutic approach that focuses on the importance of the pursuit of meaning. He argues that our primary human drive is not pleasure, as Freud suggested, but rather the discovery and pursuit of what we personally find meaningful.

30 of the best book quotes from Man’s Search for Meaning:

“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.”

“Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become the next moment. By the same token, every human being has the freedom to change at any instant.”

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

“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated. Thus, everyone’s task is unique as is his specific opportunity to implement it.”

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

“It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds.”

“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.”

“Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.”

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

“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.”

“To draw an analogy: a man’s suffering is similar to the behavior of a gas. If a certain quantity of gas is pumped into an empty chamber, it will fill the chamber completely and evenly, no matter how big the chamber. Thus suffering completely fills the human soul and conscious mind, no matter whether the suffering is great or little. Therefore the “size” of human suffering is absolutely relative.”

“To be sure, man’s search for meaning may arouse inner tension rather than inner equilibrium. However, precisely such tension is an indispensable prerequisite of mental health. 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. There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how”

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

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

“Even though conditions such as lack of sleep, insufficient food and various mental stresses may suggest that the inmates were bound to react in certain ways, in the final analysis it becomes clear that the sort of person the prisoner became was the result of an inner decision, and not the result of camp influences alone.”

“Dostoevski said once, “There is only one thing 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 the 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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“Since Auschwitz we know what man is capable of. And since Hiroshima we know what is at stake.”

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

“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.”

“Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of, likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes… 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.”

“For the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that Love is the ultimate and highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

“Sunday neurosis, 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.”

“At the beginning of human history, man lost some of the basic animal instincts in which an animal’s behavior is embedded and by which it is secured. Such security, like paradise, is closed to man forever; man has to make choices. In addition to this, however, man has suffered another loss in his more recent development inasmuch as the traditions which buttressed his behavior are now rapidly diminishing. No instinct tells him what he has to do, and no tradition tells him what he ought to do; sometimes he does not even know what he wishes to do. Instead, he either wishes to do what other people do (conformism) or he does what other people tell him to do (totalitarianism).”

“To Suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic.”

“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.”

“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”

Similar Posts