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Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Love believes all things and yet is never deceived.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, to be busy — to be a man who is brisk about his food and his work. Therefore, whenever I see a fly settling, in the decisive moment, on the nose of such a person of affairs; or if he is spattered with mud from a carriage which drives past him in still greater haste; or the drawbridge opens up before him; or a tile falls down and knocks him dead, then I laugh heartily.
Soren Kierkegaard -
But the life of freedom requires a beginning, and here a beginning is a resolution, and the resolution has its work and its pain-thus the beginning has its difficulty.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic - if it is pulled out I shall die.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Sleeping is the height of genius.
Soren Kierkegaard -
It is impossible to exist without passion.
Soren Kierkegaard -
The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair. The emphasis is on before God, or with a conception of God; it is the conception of God that makes sin dialectically, ethically, and religiously what lawyers call 'aggravated' despair.
Soren Kierkegaard -
The ever increasing intensity of despair depends upon the degree of consciousness or is proportionate to this increase: the greater the degree of consciousness, the more intensive the despair. This is everywhere apparent, most clearly in despair at its maximum and minimum. The devil's despair is the most intensive despair, for the devil is sheer spirit and hence unqualified consciousness and transparency; there is no obscurity in the devil that could serve as a mitigating excuse. Therefore, his despair is the most absolute defiance. . . .
Soren Kierkegaard -
My scholarly expectation is then that I may succeed in becoming clever in philosophy in spite of my stupidity.
Soren Kierkegaard -
The only analogy I have before me is Socrates. My task is a Socratic task, to revise the definition of what it is to be a Christian. For my part I do not call myself a "Christian" (thus keeping the ideal free), but I am able to make it evident that the others are still less than I.
Soren Kierkegaard -
I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius.
Soren Kierkegaard -
The object of Christian faith is not the teaching but the Teacher.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Sin is in itself separation from the good, but despair over sin is separation a second time.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth.
Soren Kierkegaard -
It is intelligent to ask two questions: (1) Is it possible? (2) Can I do it?. But it is unintelligent to ask these questions: (1) Is it real? (2) Has my neighbor done it?
Soren Kierkegaard -
The truth is lived before it is understood. It must be fought for, tested, and appropriated. Truth is the way... Anyone will easily understand it if he just gives himself to it.
Soren Kierkegaard -
What our age lacks is not reflection, but passion.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Human justice is very prolix, and yet at times quite mediocre; divine justice is more concise and needs no information from the prosecution, no legal papers, no interrogation of witnesses, but makes the guilty one his own informer and helps him with eternity's memory.
Soren Kierkegaard -
There is no greater evil one can suffer than to hate reasonable discourse.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Just as in earthly life lovers long for the moment when they are able to breathe forth their love for each other, to let their souls blend in a soft whisper, so the mystic longs for the moment when in prayer he can, as it were, creep into God.
Soren Kierkegaard -
Philosophy always requires something more, requires the eternal, the true, in contrast to which even the fullest existence as such is but a happy moment.
Soren Kierkegaard