Viktor E. Frankl Quotes on Success (4 Quotes)

For the first time in my life, I was able to understand the words, 'The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory.'

I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world may still know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when a man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way an honorable way in such a position man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment.

Again and again I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America Don't aim at success the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run in the long-run, I say success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.

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.