“At the end of a life spent in the pursuit of knowledge Faust has to confess: "I now see that we can nothing know." That is the answer to a sum, it is the outcome of a long experience. But as Kierkegaard observed, it is quite a different thing when a freshman comes up to the university and uses the same sentiment to justify his indolence. As the answer to a sum it is perfectly true, but as the initial data it is a piece of self-deception.”

— Dietrich Bonhoeffer

translated as The Cost of Discipleship (1959), p. 51.
Discipleship (1937), Costly Grace

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer 161

German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi 1906–1945

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