QuoteProject
A man who could not see the end of his"provisional existence" was not able to aim at an ultimate goal in life.
Viktor E. Frankl
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

A lack of long-term vision hinders one's ability to set meaningful life goals.

Viktor E. Frankl suggests that individuals who fail to perceive a purpose beyond their immediate circumstances struggle to define meaningful aspirations in life. This highlights the importance of having a clear, ultimate goal that motivates and guides our daily actions and choices.

Themes

PurposeGoalsMeaningLifeVision

In practice

Example use cases

In a motivational speech to inspire students about finding their purpose.

More from Viktor E. Frankl

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.
Viktor E. FranklRead
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 anymore—except his God.
Viktor E. FranklRead
Here lies the chance for a man either to make use of or to forgo the opportunities of attaining the moral values that a difficult situation may afford him. And this decides whether he is worthy of his sufferings or not.
Viktor E. FranklRead
It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
Viktor E. FranklRead
Logotherapy sees the human patient in all his humanness. I step up to the core of the patient's being. And that is a being in search of meaning, a being that is transcending himself, a being capable of acting in love for others.
Viktor E. FranklRead
The more one forgives 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. FranklRead

Similar quotes

You climb to reach the summit, but once there, discover that all roads lead down.
Stanislaw LemRead
In the post-enlightenment Europe of the 19th century the highest authority was no longer the Church. Instead it was science. Thus was born racial anti-Semitism, based on two disciplines regarded as science in their day - the 'scientific study of race' and the Social Darwinism of Herbert Spencer and Ernst Haeckel.
Jonathan SacksRead
we must not blame our poor symbols if they take forms that seem trivial to us, or absurd, ... however paltry they may be; the nature of our life alone has determined their forms.
Angela CarterRead
Man is now able to soar into outer space and reach up to the moon; but he is not moral enough to live at peace with his neighbor!
Sathya Sai BabaRead
Like looking through a telescope into the Milky Way and wondering if we're alone in the universe, it made me realize with the glaring clarity of desert light how scarce and delicate life is, how insignificant we are compared with the forces of nature and the dimensions of space.
Aron RalstonRead
The present rearranges the past. We never tell the story whole because a life isn't a story; it's a whole Milky Way of events and we are forever picking out constellations from it to fit who and where we are.
Rebecca SolnitRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.