This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
We cannot, after all, judge a biography by its length, by the number of pages in it; we must judge by the richness of the contents... Sometimes the 'unfinisheds' are among the most beautiful symphonies.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Ironically enough, in the same way that fear brings to pass what one is afraid of; likewise a forced intention makes impossible what one forcibly wishes... 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 Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
What matters is to make the best of any given situation. "The best," however, is that which in Latin is called optimum--hence the reason I speak of a tragic optimism, that is, an optimism in the face of tragedy and in view of the human potential which at its best always allows for (l) turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment; (2) deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for the better; and (3) deriving from life's transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
It is reserved for man alone to find his very existence questionable, to experience the whole dubiousness of being. More than such faculties as power of speech, conceptual thinking, or walking erect, this factor of doubting the significance of his own existence is what sets man apart from animal.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Paradoxical intention can also be applied in cases of sleep disturbance. The fear of sleeplessness results in a hyper-intention to fall asleep, which, in turn, incapacitates the patient to do so. To overcome this particular fear, I usually advise the patient not to try to sleep but rather to try to do just the opposite, that is, to stay awake as long as possible. In other words, the hyper-intention to fall asleep, arising from the anticipatory anxiety of not being able to do so, must be replaced by the paradoxical intention not to fall asleep, which soon will be followed by sleep.
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
To discover that there was any semblance of art in a concentration camp must be a surprise enough for an outsider, but he may be even more astonished to hear that one could find a sense of humor there as well; of course, only the faint trace of one, and then only for a few seconds or minutes. Humor was another of the soul's weapons in the fight for self-preservation. It is well known that humor, more than anything else in the human make-up, can afford an aloofness and an ability to rise above any situation, even if only for a few seconds. I practically trained a friend of mine who worked next to me on the building site to develop a sense of humor. I suggested to him that we would promise each other to invent at least one amusing story daily, about some incident that could happen one day after our liberation. He was a surgeon and had once been an assistant on the staff of a large hospital. So I once tried to get him to smile by describing to him how he would be unable to lose the habits of camp life when he returned to his former work. On the building site (especially when the supervisor made his tour of inspection) the foreman encouraged us to work faster by shouting: 'Action! Action!' I told my friend, 'One day you will be back in the operating room, performing a big abdominal operation. Suddenly an orderly will rush in announcing the arrival of the senior surgeon by shouting, Action! Action!'
Indispensable | Knowledge | Meaning | Nothing | Search | Wisdom | Words |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
What will it matter to him if he notices that he is growing old? Has he any reason to envy the young people whom he sees or wax nostalgic over his own lost youth? What reasons has he to envy a young person? For the possibilities that a young person has, the future which is in store for him? "No, thank you," he will think. "Instead of possibilities, I have realities in my past, not only the reality of work done and love loved, but of sufferings bravely suffered. These sufferings are even the things of which I am most proud, though these things are things that cannot inspire envy.
Action | Change | Contemplation | Destiny | Fate | Life | Life | Man | Meaning | Means | Opportunity | Problems | Responsibility | Right | Suffering | Teach | Unique | Will | Fate | Contemplation | Learn | Think |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
But there was no need to be ashamed of tears, for tears bore witness that a man had the greatest of courage, the courage to suffer.
Ability | Accident | Day | Growth | Life | Life | Meaning | Power | Psychology | Television | Time | Will |
Viktor Frankl, fully Viktor Emil Frankl
Many weeks later we found out that even in those last hours fate had toyed with us few remaining prisoners. We found out just how uncertain human decisions are, especially in matters of life and death. I was confronted with photographs which had been taken in a small camp not far from ours. Our friends who had thought they were traveling to freedom that night had been taken in the trucks to this camp, and there they were locked in the huts and burned to death. Their partially charred bodies were recognizable on the photograph.
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
Man's last freedom is his freedom to choose how he will react in any given situation
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 |
One, who takes lessons from his past and improves on himself need not fear the future.
Meaning |
Upton Sinclair, fully Upton Beall Sinclair, Jr.
The remedy for the Great Depression is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others… the American way.
Despise | Good | Meaning | Pious | Question | Sense | Society | Wealth | Will | Society | Old | Understand |
Ursula Le Guin, fully Ursula Kroeber Le Guin
From that time forth he believed that the wise man is one who never sets himself apart from other living things, whether they have speech or not, and in later years he strove long to learn what can be learned, in silence, from the eyes of animals, the flight of birds, the great slow gestures of trees.
One who is bent on courting his death will not take kindly to sage counsel given by his well-wishers
Distinguish | Man | Meaning | Nothing |