“For as only one thing is necessary, and as the theme of the talk is the willing of only one thing: hence the consciousness before God of one’s eternal responsibility to be an individual is that one thing necessary.”
Søren Kierkegaard, Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, 1847 p. 197-198
1840s, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), Purity of Heart (1847)
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Sören Kierkegaard 309
Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855Related quotes
Il n'y a pour les choses et pour les poèmes qu'une seule manière d'être nouveaux, c'est d'être vrais et qu'une seule manière d'être jeunes, c'est d'être éternels.
Positions et propositions (Paris: Gallimard, 1928) p. 16; John O'Connor (trans.) Ways and Crossways (London: Sheed & Ward, 1935) p. 49.
Variant: If there is anything more annoying in the world than having people talk about you, it is certainly having no one talk about you.
Source: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Robert Fripp: From King Crimson to Guitar Craft (Eric Tamm)
Knowing Yourself: The True in the False (1996)
Context: In the beginning the entire creation seems to hinder, obstruct and try to keep you away from experiencing the Creator. It is the way of things that only the unrelenting, indomitable individual can escape and experience God. The curious masses always fail. Later on, all things help, not hinder, the valiant ones.
“The only thing necessary is to understand attachment”
Everyday Peace: Letters for Life, 2000
Context: You have everything and you want more. It's natural in human beings. You don't need to give away your house, money, and car, and leave your family to find God. The only thing necessary is to understand attachment. (p.17)
Interview with Suzie Daggett at Insight: Healthy Living (July 2006).
Context: Mystics, contrary to religionists, are always saying that reality is not two things — God and the world — but one thing, consciousness. It is a monistic view of reality based on consciousness that mystics claim to directly intuit. The problem with science has always been that most scientists believe that science must be done within a different monistic framework, one based on the primacy of matter. And then, quantum physics showed us that we must change that myopic prejudice of scientists, otherwise we cannot comprehend quantum physics. So now we have science within consciousness, a new paradigm of science based on the primacy of consciousness that is gradually replacing the old materialist science. Why? Not only because you can't understand quantum physics without this new metaphysics but also because the new paradigm resolves many other paradoxes of the old paradigm and explains much anomalous data.
