"At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference."
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Soren Kierkegaard quotes (page 9 of 25)
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"The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires."
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"It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important."
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"Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself."
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"The God that can be named is not God."
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"The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed."
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"It was not to save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to appease angry gods... Then why does Abraham do it? For God's sake... He does it for the sake of God because God demands proof of his faith... He was not justified by being virtuous, but by being an individual submitted to God in faith."
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"There is something almost cruel about the Christian's being placed in a world which in every way wants to pressure him to do the opposite of what God bids him to do."
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"It is more blessed to give than to receive, but then it is also more blessed to be able to do without than to have to have."
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"In the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd. He only sees each individual"
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"Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth."
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"I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved."
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"However much one generation learns from another, it can never learn from its predecessor the genuinely human factor. In this respect every generation begins afresh. Thus no generation has learned from another how to love, no generation can begin other than at the beginning."
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"To stand on one leg and prove God's existence is a very different thing from going on one's knees and thanking him."
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"Knowledge of the truth I may perhaps have attained to; happiness certainly not. What shall I do? Accomplish something in the world, men tell me. Shall I then publish my grief to the world, contribute one more proof for the wretchedness and misery of existence, perhaps discover a new flaw in human life, hitherto unnoticed? I might then reap the rare reward of becoming famous, like the man who discovered the spots on Jupiter. I prefer, however, to keep silent."
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"The crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."
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"Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life."
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"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."
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"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."
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"A man may perform astonishing feats and comprehend a vast amount of knowledge, and yet have no understanding of himself. But suffering directs a man to look within. If it succeeds, then there, within him, is the beginning of his learning."
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