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
View your life from your funeral, looking back at your life experiences, what have you accomplished? What would you have wanted to accomplish but didn't? What were the happy moments? What were the sad? What would you do again, and what you wouldn't
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote encourages reflection on one's life from a broader perspective, assessing accomplishments and missed opportunities.
Viktor E. Frankl's quote invites individuals to contemplate their lives as if they were viewing it from their own funeral, prompting a deep and meaningful assessment of their experiences, values, and choices. It challenges people to think critically about their accomplishments, the moments of joy and sorrow they encountered, and what they might wish to change or pursue in their lives, thus fostering a greater understanding of personal significance and priorities.
Themes
ReflectionLifePerspectiveAccomplishmentsExperience
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech, to encourage attendees to reflect on their life goals.
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.
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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.
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It is the pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.
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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
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