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
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Humor allows us to detach from our problems and view them from a distance.
In this quote, Viktor E. Frankl emphasizes the unique capacity of humor to create a psychological distance from challenging situations. This temporary aloofness can provide relief and perspective, enabling individuals to cope more effectively, even if just momentarily, by rising above life's difficulties through laughter.
Themes
HumorAloofnessPerspectiveCopingLaughter
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a mental health awareness event to promote the benefits of humor.
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
As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn’t matter how, I’ll be alright. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won’t mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.
Osamu DazaiRead
I always take Scotch whiskey at night as a preventive of toothache. I have never had the toothache; and what is more, I never intend to have it.
Mark TwainRead
There is nothing funny about Halloween. This sarcastic festival reflects, rather, an infernal demand for revenge by children on the adult world.
Jean BaudrillardRead
Sometimes I lie awake at night thinking about all the dumb things I do every day... If I live to be eighty and I do ten dumb things each day... That would be about two hundred and ninety thousand dumb things... When you add up all the dumb things you do, it's best to use round figures.
Charles M. SchulzRead
Many years ago I chased a woman for almost two years, only to discover that her tastes were exactly like mine: we both were crazy about girls.
Groucho MarxRead
You hear things about certain people. When you hear someone was mean to a limo driver or a wardrobe lady, or someone was rotten to a fan, somewhere in your brain it gets stuck.
Joan RiversRead