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
For the meaning of life differs from man to man, from day to day and from hour to hour. What matters, therefore, is not the meaning of life in general but rather the specific meaning of a person's life at a given moment.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The meaning of life is subjective and varies for each individual and moment.
Viktor E. Frankl emphasizes that there is no universal meaning of life that applies to everyone at all times. Instead, he proposes that the significance of life is deeply personal and can change based on individual circumstances and experiences, highlighting the importance of finding one's own meaning in specific moments.
Themes
MeaningLifePersonalIndividualMoment
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about pursuing personal goals and finding fulfillment.
More from Viktor E. Frankl
All quotes →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
No matter what system you live under, there is no escaping the law that it's always the strongest, the cruellest, the least generous who win.
Oriana FallaciRead
There is no such thing as inner peace. There is only nervousness or death. Any attempt to prove otherwise constitutes unacceptable behavior.
Fran LebowitzRead
The time has come to educate people, to cease all quarrels in the name of religion, culture, countries, different political or economic systems. Fighting is useless. Suicide.
Dalai LamaRead
Fame is not just. She never finely or discriminatingly praises, but coarsely hurrahs.
Henry David ThoreauRead
And so for me there is no sting of death, And so the grave has lost its victory. It is but crossing-with abated breath And white, set face-a little strip of sea To find the loved ones waiting on the shore, More beautiful, more precious than before.
Ella Wheeler WilcoxRead
How Americans restore trust may be an existential question for their country, then, but it's ultimately a practical one: What U.S. society needs to answer it in the coming years aren't lamentations but practical measures, especially among the emerging generations that will define America's future.
Stanley A. McchrystalRead