11 Viktor Frankl Quotes That Teach Us to Lead Meaningful Lives

#6: Life is like being at the dentist. You always think the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.”

If you’ve ever read Psychologist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, you know it’s packed with wisdom on how to discover your unique purpose and lead a meaningful life.

Frankl never promises life’s easy. He simply proves it’s worth it.

Here are eleven Viktor Frankl quotes that teach us how to love, succeed, and endure life’s ups and downs with dignity, strength, and most of all, hope.

#1: “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.”

This quote is credited to Nietzche. However, Frankl uses it repeatedly to explain how defining our life’s purpose enables us to endure any obstacle.

When we find a why we find a way. Giving meaning to the things in our lives, even our suffering, allows us to withstand anything. It allows us to use our challenges to propel us forward.

Our why gives way to our how. Our reasons are our resilience.

#2: “Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.”

Loss is an inevitable part of life. Everything can be ripped away from us at any moment — possessions, people, job titles, opportunities, and even life itself — but there is one thing we never lose, our freedom to answer the question,

“What now?”

Even when we can’t change our external circumstances, we can change our attitudes. We can change our approach.

#3: “Don’t aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it.”

Success is a result of actively pursuing your values. It is not a goal but a side-effect of authentic living. The same is true for happiness.

If you are always reaching for happiness, you will never grab it. Instead of pursuing happiness, pursue a reason to be happy.

A passion project? An exciting hobby? Greater physical or emotional health?

Listen to the voice that tells you what you want or need, and take action. Success naturally follows. So does satisfaction.

#4: “The salvation of man is through love and in love.”

Love gives life meaning. Loving someone wholeheartedly, not in spite of their quirks and imperfections but because of them, is enough to give your life value.

It’s a romantic idea and yet a realistic one. Frankl recounts finding bliss in the cold, brutal mornings of camp life through the mere thought of his beloved, a woman who, though he didn’t know it at the time, was no longer living.

When thinking about his wife, Frankl “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 the highest goal to which man can aspire.”

Love gives you something to fight for. Love gives you a reason to feel everything else.

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

“If I were you I would…”

Whenever we think we know exactly what we would do in someone else’s shoes, we should stop to ask ourselves if we have ever been in a similar situation.

If not, we have no idea how we would respond. If so, we might be in a place to give empathetic advice.

We are spectators of other people’s lives and players only in our own. It’s easy to judge. It’s much harder to understand and even more challenging to forgive.

But as the saying goes, nothing easy is worth it.

#6: “Life is like being at the dentist. You always think the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.”

Worry says the worst is yet to come. Anxiety screams the worst is on its way.

But what if the worst is in the past? What if your future exceeds even your wildest dreams?

It might not, sure. But what if, what if, what if? You decide the stories you tell yourself about your life for better or for worse.

The next time your mind spins a horror story, challenge it with one of hope. Right now it doesn’t matter which one comes true. The only thing that matters is which one you believe.

#7: “In the past, nothing is irretrievably lost, but rather, on the contrary, everything is irrevocably stored and treasured.”

Many people envy the young for having potential, but the old have something even more valuable. Truths.

The young have possibilities — the old realities.

Nothing you have created or accomplished can be taken away from you. What has passed can never be lost. No one can undo the impacts you have made.

What you leave behind, even if only in memory, is your legacy, not erased but published.

#8: “What a man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task.”

We think we want life to be easy. We don’t.

Those who have achieved what most of us only dream about — fame, fortune, and status — remind us nothing we can gain in the outer world can fulfill us.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting a life with luxuries, comforts, and pleasures. Pleasure plays a role, but it can’t be your only goal.

What do you want to do not for a glorified outcome but for the sake of doing it? What are you willing to sacrifice for?

#9: “Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather he must recognize that it is he who is asked.”

We frequently question, “What do I want out of life?” But how often do we stop and wonder, “What does life want out of me?”

Each new day asks something of us. We are responsible for our answers.

Instead of worrying about the abstract meaning of our lives, we should look at what is concrete, here and now.

What can I do today? What is my next best step? How can I honor both my desires and my duties?

Start where you are today. There is no other way.

#10: “A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining.”

Fate presents us with options. We make decisions.

Every day we wake up and choose what to do with the time we’ve been given. We all want to change the world, but what if, instead, we focused first on changing ourselves?

People can change, but only if they want to. We define ourselves by succumbing to life’s pressures or rising against them.

Every day is a blank page. You hold the pen. Write something you would want to read. Live a life you wish to remember.

#11: “Live as if you were living for the second time and had acted as wrongly the first time as you are about to act now.”

Life is made out of moments and what we do with them. Even when we know the right thing to do, we often resist.

Think of a new skill or habit you are trying to develop. Do you resist doing it? Do you have grand ideas for what you want to accomplish and then get hung up on the daily act of working towards it?

We all do. We all make the wrong choices, give in to temptations, opt for the easy way, and battle mental resistance to taking the next best step towards what we really want.

Whatever you don’t like about your current situation, whatever you want to change, now is the time to do it. Don’t wait for tomorrow to do what is possible today.

Acknowledge your temptation to do the wrong thing. Then do the opposite.

Victor Frankl’s life could have gone very differently. He could have moved to the USA and avoided the concentration camps altogether. He had a visa. Instead, he chose to remain in Austria with his elderly parents.

Viktor Frankl’s life could have gone very differently. He could have moved to the USA and avoided the concentration camps altogether. He had a visa. Instead, he chose to remain in Austria with his elderly parents.

Frankl could have given up on his psychological research when his initial manuscript was destroyed in Auschwitz. Instead, he began rewriting it while imprisoned.

Frankl could have understandably grown to hate humanity. He saw the worst of it. Instead, he dedicated his whole life to saving it.

Viktor Frankl is a man who made all the right choices, or at least enough of them that we remember him that way. He lived an exemplary life and left us with a final call to action:

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

So let’s do our best. How? Applying the wisdom from these quotes is a perfect place to start.

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