Man’s Search for Meaning

by

Victor Frankl

Self-transcendence of human existence Term Analysis

Frankl uses this term to refer to the fact that one can only find meaning through an encounter with something external to oneself. In other words, you must forget yourself and focus on your responsibility to something else in order to make your life meaningful.

Self-transcendence of human existence Quotes in Man’s Search for Meaning

The Man’s Search for Meaning quotes below are all either spoken by Self-transcendence of human existence or refer to Self-transcendence of human existence. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
The Search for Meaning Theme Icon
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Experiences in a Concentration Camp Quotes

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. I understand how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.

Page Number: 37
Explanation and Analysis:

Love goes very far beyond the physical person of the beloved. It finds its deepest meaning in his spiritual being, his inner self. Whether or not he is actually present, whether he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.

Page Number: 38
Explanation and Analysis:

At that moment there was very little I knew of myself or of the world—I had but one sentence in mind—always the same: “I called to the Lord from my narrow prison and He answered me in the freedom of space.”
How long I knelt there and repeated this sentence memory can no longer recall. But I know that on that day, in that hour, my new life started. Step for step I progressed, until I again became a human being.

Page Number: 89
Explanation and Analysis:
Logotherapy: The Meaning of Love Quotes

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized.

Page Number: 111
Explanation and Analysis:
Logotherapy: Psychiatry Rehumanized Quotes

Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers at Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord’s Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips.

Page Number: 134
Explanation and Analysis:
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Self-transcendence of human existence Term Timeline in Man’s Search for Meaning

The timeline below shows where the term Self-transcendence of human existence appears in Man’s Search for Meaning. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Logotherapy in a Nutshell: The Essence of Existence
The Search for Meaning Theme Icon
Freedom, Optimism, and Responsibility Theme Icon
Psychology and Logotherapy Theme Icon
...a responsibility to something or someone other than oneself. Frankl calls this phenomenon the “ self-transcendence of human existence .” By forgetting oneself and focusing on an encounter with something else, man finds more... (full context)