A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth-that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which a man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of human is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for the 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. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, " The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory. Viktor E. Frankl
About This Quote

A young woman wrote this poem in August, 1857. There is little known about her, but in that moment, in that place, in that setting, in that instant that she wrote this poem, she had glimpsed the truth - the eternal truth - which is love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which a man can aspire.

Source: Mans Search For Ultimate Meaning

Some Similar Quotes
  1. Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for... - Bob Marley
  2. As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once. - John Green
  3. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you,... - Pablo Neruda
  4. Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. - Neil Gaiman
  5. There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment. - Sarah Dessen
More Quotes By Viktor E. Frankl
  1. 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 or not he is still alive at all, ceases somehow to be of importance.
  2. I do not forget any good deed done to me & I do not carry a grudge for a bad one.
  3. 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.
  4. Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms–to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.
  5. It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life–daily and hourly. Our answer...
Related Topics