This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Thus is youth constituted; it quickly dries its eyes; it believes sorrow useless and does not accept it.
One day, in the course of that winter, the sun had come out for a while in the afternoon, but it was the second of February, that ancient Candlmas-day whose treacherous sun, the precursor of six weeks of cold, inspired Matthew Laensberg with the two lines, which have deservedly become classic: Let it gleam or let it glimmer, the bear goes back into his cave.
Events | Giving | Good | Life | Life | Thought | World | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Naturally only a few people were capable of reaching great spiritual heights. But a few were given the chance to attain human greatness even through their apparent worldly failure and death, an accomplishment which in ordinary circumstances they would have never achieved. To the others of us, the mediocre and the half-hearted, the words of Bismarck could be applied: Life is like being at the dentist. You always think that the worst is still to come, and yet it is over already.” Varying this, we could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.
Contemplation | Conversation | Life | Life | Love | Means | Mind | Need | Nothing | Prison | Strength | Thought | Wife | Contemplation | Think | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
I had wanted simply to convey to the reader by way of concrete example that life holds a potential meaning under any conditions, even the most miserable ones. And I thought that if the point were demonstrated in a situation as extreme as that in a concentration camp, my book might gain a hearing. I therefore felt responsible for writing down what I had gone through, for I thought it might be helpful to people who are prone to despair.
Belief | Love | Man | Meaning | Poetry | Salvation | Thought | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of the prisoners.
Fate | Freedom | Life | Life | Thought | Fate | Friends | Thought |
Goods deeds fill the mind with enthusiasm and zeal.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
I made a quick last round of my patients [just before I intended to escape], who were lying huddled on the rotten planks of wood on either side of the huts. I came to my only countryman, who was almost dying, and whose life it had been my ambition to save in spite of his condition. I had to keep my intention to escape to myself, but my comrade seemed to guess that something was wrong (perhaps I showed a little nervousness). In a tired voice he asked me, 'You, too, are getting out?' I denied it, but I found it difficult to avoid his sad look. After my round I returned to him. Again a hopeless look greeted me and somehow I felt it to be an accusation. The unpleasant feeling that had gripped me as soon as I had told my friend I would escape with him became more intense. Suddenly I decided to take fate into my own hands for once. I ran out of the hut and told my friend that I could not go with him. As soon as I had told him with finality that I had made up my mind to stay with my patients, the unhappy feeling left me. I did not know what the following days would bring, but I had gained an inward peace that I had never experienced before. I returned to the hut, sat down on the boards at my countryman's feet and tried to comfort him; then I chatted with the others, trying to quiet them in their delirium.
Example | Extreme | Life | Life | Meaning | People | Thought | Writing | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Tears came to his eyes and I tried to comfort him. Then there was something else to do — to make my will: “Listen, Otto, if I don’t get back home to my wife, and if you should see her again, then tell her that I talked of her daily, hourly. You remember. Secondly, I have loved her more than anyone. Thirdly, the short time I have been married to her outweighs everything, even all we have gone through here.”
Accomplishment | Death | Fate | Friend | Man | Thought | Fate | Thought |
May all nurture their children and grand-children properly and be blessed with 100 years of healthy life.
To venture, to defy, to persevere, to be true to one's self, to grapple with destiny, to dismay calamity by not being afraid of it, to challenge now unrighteous powers and now victory run wild, to stand fast and hold firm — these are the examples that the peoples need, the spark that electrifies them.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Once, an elderly general practitioner consulted me because of his severe depression. He could not overcome the loss of his wife who had died two years before and whom he had loved above all else. Now, how can I help him? What should I tell him? Well, I refrained from telling him anything but instead confronted him with the question, “What would have happened, Doctor, if you had died first, and your wife would have had to survive you?” “Oh,” he said, “for her this would have been terrible; how she would have suffered!” Whereupon I replied, “You see, Doctor, such a suffering has been spared her, and it was you who have spared her this suffering — to be sure, at the price that now you have to survive and mourn her.” He said no word but shook my hand and calmly left my office. In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning, such as the meaning of a sacrifice.
Advice | Day | Life | Life | Purpose | Purpose | Sense | Thought | Friends | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
The size of human suffering is absolutely relative. It also follows that a very trifling thing can cause the greatest of joys.
Enough | Excitement | Friend | Good | Hope | Order | Thought | Thought |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
After all, man is that being who has invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who has entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or Shema Yisrael on his lips.
Achievement | Angels | Belief | Contemplation | Life | Life | Love | Man | Meaning | Nothing | Poetry | Position | Right | Salvation | Thought | Time | Truth | Wisdom | World | Contemplation | Thought | Understand |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
There are some authors who contend that meanings and values are nothing but defense mechanisms, reaction formations and sublimations. But as for myself, I would not be willing to live merely for the sake of my defense mechanisms, nor would I be ready to die merely for the sake of my reaction formations.
Belief | Love | Meaning | Poetry | Salvation | Thought | Thought |
God is naturally pervading all places. Sometimes He is hidden, and sometimes He is revealed; thus God has made the world of His making. He Himself wakes us from sleep. No one can estimate His value, although everyone has tried, over and over again, to describe Him.