"Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person."
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Soren Kierkegaard quotes (page 16 of 25)
496 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"What a difference! Under the esthetic sky, everything is buoyant, beautiful, transient! when ethics arrives on the scene, everything becomes harsh, angular and infinitely boring"
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"Most people live dejectedly in worldly joys or sorrows. They sit on the sidelines and do not join the dance."
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"The individual (no matter how well-meaning he might be, no matter how much strength he might have, if only he would use it) does not have the passion to rip himself away from either the coils of Reflection or the seductive ambiguities of Reflection; nor do the surroundings and times have any events or passions, but rather provide a negative setting of a habit of reflection, which plays with some illusory project only to betray him in the end with a way out: it shows him that the most clever thing to do is nothing at all."
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"It is only all too easy to understand the requirements contained in God's Word ('Give all your goods to the poor.' 'If anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the left.' 'If anyone takes your coat, let him have your cloak also. Rejoice always.' 'Count it sheer joy when you meet various temptations' etc.). The most ignorant, poor creature cannot honestly deny being able to understand God's requirements. But it is tough on the flesh to will to understand it and to then act accordingly. It is not a question of interpretation, but action."
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"Absolute passion cannot be understood by a third party."
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"When all combine in every way to make everything easier, people will want difficulty. I conceived it as my task to make difficulties everywhere."
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"Silence is the demon's trap, and the more one is silenced, the more terrible the demon; but silence is also the divinity's mutual understanding with the single individual."
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"As the arrow, loosed from the bow by the hand of the practiced archer, does not rest till it has reached the mark, so men pass from God to God. He is the mark for which they have been created, and they do not rest till they find their rest in him."
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"The present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete indolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed."
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"Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom."
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"A poet is not an apostle; he drives out devils only by the power of the devil."
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"Whoever thou art, whatever in other respects thy life may be, my friend, by ceasing to take part (if ordinarily thou doest) in the public worship of God, as it now is (with the claim that it is the Christianity of the New Testament), thou hast constantly one guilt the less, and that a great one: thou dost not take part in treating God as a fool by calling that the Christianity of the New Testament which is not the Christianity of the New Testament."
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"Faith is holding onto uncertainties with passionate conviction."
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"Genius never desires what does not exist."
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"To grumble about the world and its unhappiness is always easier than to beat one's breast and groan over oneself."
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"I stick my finger into existence.. it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? What is this thing called the world? What does this word mean?"
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"I stick my finger into existence and it smells of nothing."
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"When you were called, did you answer or did you not? Perhaps softly and in a whisper?"
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"It is tragic-comic to see that all this knowledge and understanding exercises no power at all over men's lives, that their lives do not express in the remotest way what they have understood, but rather the opposite."
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