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25 Quotes From "Man's Search For Meaning" That Will Help You Find Meaning In Your Life

A question that burns under the fingernails: What is the meaning of life?
Rania Naim
August 17, 2016
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose
“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.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose, Success, Happiness
“Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Happiness, Success
“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.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose
“There is much wisdom in the words of Nietzsche: ‘He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.’”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose
“In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Suffering, Sacrifice
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Happiness, Pleasure
“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Expectations
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Responsibility, actions
“Man is capable of changing the world for the better if possible, and of changing himself for the better if necessary.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Change
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Society, Standards, Blurred Lines
“The truth—that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Love
“The salvation of man is through love and in love. 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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Love, Salvation
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Choices
“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Change, Challenges
“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.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Sacrifice, purpose
“No man should judge unless he asks himself in absolute honesty whether in a similar situation he might not have done the same.’”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Judgments, judging
“A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Goals, Responsibility
“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 E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Fear, Faith, God
“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them. In other words, man is ultimately self-determining. Man does not simply exist but always decides what his existence will be, what he will become in the next moment.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Decisions, Existence
“A positive attitude enables a person to endure suffering and disappointment as well as enhance enjoyment and satisfaction. A negative attitude intensifies pain and deepens disappointments; it undermines and diminishes pleasure, happiness, and satisfaction; it may even lead to depression or physical illness”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, Negativity, Attitude, Positivity
“Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, humor, Laughter
“According to logotherapy, this striving for to find a meaning in one's life is the primary motivational force in man.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, motivation, purpose
“We can discover this meaning in life in three different ways: (1) by creating a work or doing a deed; (2) by experiencing something or encountering someone; and (3) by the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose
“We must never forget that we may also find meaning in life even when confronted with a hopeless situation, when facing a fate that cannot be changed.”
— Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning
Tagged: Life, Meaning Of Life, purpose, Fate