Søren Kierkegaard citations

Page 5

“Venez, sommeil et mort; vous ne promettez rien, vous tenez tout.”

“La foi est justement ce paradoxe : l'individu, en tant qu'individu, est plus grand que le général, il est justifié devant le général, il ne lui est point subordonné, mais lui est supérieur, et il l'est de telle manière, observez-le bien, que c'est l'individu qui, après avoir été subordonné en tant qu'individu au général, devient, à travers le général, l'individu dont l'individualité est supérieure au général, parce que l'individu, en tant qu'individu, est en rapport absolu avec l'absolu. Cette position ne souffre aucune médiation, puisque toute médiation survient justement en vertu du général.”

“Le feu prit un jour dans les coulisses d'un théâtre. Le bouffon vint en avertir le public. On crut à un mot plaisant et l'on applaudit; il répéta, les applaudissements redoublèrent. C'est ainsi, je pense, que le monde périra dans l’allégresse générale des gens spirituels persuadés qu’il s’agit d’une plaisanterie.”

“Que la vie est insignifiante et vide!”

“L'angoisse est le vertige de la liberté.”

“La jouissance proprement dite ne réside pas dans la chose dont on jouit, mais dans l’idée qu’on s’en fait.”

“Quant à l'autorité humaine, étant fétichiste, j'adore n'importe qui avec une égale ferveur, pourvu qu'avec assez de tambour on annonce que c'est un tel qu'il faut que j'adore, et que cette année c'est lui l'autorité et l'imprimatur. Le choix passe toujours ma raison, qu'on le tire au sort ou qu'on vote, ou que la dignité alterne par roulement, et que son détenteur siège alors comme un membre de municipalité au conseil des prud'hommes.”

“Les hommes sont vraiment absurdes. Ils n'usent jamais des libertés dont ils jouissent, mais ils réclament celles qu'ils n'ont pas; ils ont la liberté de pensée, ils demandent la liberté de parole.”

“I am convinced that God is love, this thought has for me a primitive lyrical validity. When it is present to me, I am unspeakably blissful, when it is absent, I long for it more vehemently than does the lover for his object.”

“Don't forget to love yourself.”

“What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.”

“The only intelligent tactical response to life’s horror is to laugh defiantly at it”

“For he who loves God without faith reflects on himself, while the person who loves God in faith reflects on God.”

“Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility”

“For love is exultant when it unites equals, but it is triumphant when it makes that which was unequal equal in love.”

“Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.”

“Far from idleness being the root of all evil, it is rather the only true good.”

“When you were called, did you answer or did you not? Perhaps softly and in a whisper?”

“I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.”

“I would rather be a swineherd, understood by the swine, than a poet misunderstood by men.”

“My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.”

“This, then, is the ultimate paradox of thought: to want to discover something that thought itself cannot think.”

“Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.”

“It's better to get lost in the passion than to lose the passion”

“Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing”

“Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour when every one has to throw off his mask? Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked? Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight to avoid this?”

“When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world — no matter how imperfect — becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.”

“People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as compensation.”

“Language has time as its element; all other media have space as their element.”

“Only the person who is essentially capable of remaining silent is capable of speaking essentially.”

“It is modest of the nightingale not to require anyone to listen to it; but it is also proud of the nightingale not to care whether any one listens to it or not.”

“Sleeping is the height of genius”

“The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.”

“For like a poisonous breath over the fields, like a mass of locusts over Egypt, so the swarm of excuses is a general plaque, a ruinous infection among men, that eats off the sprouts of the Eternal.”

“Only the noble of heart are called to difficulty.”

“I'm so misunderstood that people misunderstand me even when I tell them I'm misunderstood.”

“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.”