“When one merely states that one has many subscribers and keeps on saying it, then one gets many; just as when one sheep goes to water, the next one also goes, and when it is continually said of a large flock of sheep that they go hither and yon to water, then the rest must also go, so people believe that it must be the demand of the times, that for the sake of use and custom – they must also subscribe.”
Søren Kierkegaard, Writing Sampler, Nichol P. 89-90
1840s, Writing Sampler (1844)
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Sören Kierkegaard 309
Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855Related quotes
“Men are sheep. Where one goes, the rest will soon follow.
-Lady Whistledown”
Source: The Duke and I
“In order to be a perfect member of a flock of sheep, one has to be, foremost, a sheep.”
Um ein tadelloses Mitglied einer Schafherde sein zu können, muß man vor allem ein Schaf sein.
The New Quotable Einstein
variant translation from Ideas and Opinions: "In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep."
1950s, Essay to Leo Baeck (1953)
“One never goes so far as when one doesn't know where one is going.”
Letter to Carl Friedrich Zelter (3 December 1812)
“But one must go where one's road leads, even when it's a distressing road.”
Source: Crewel Lye
1880s, 1884, Letter to Theo (Nuenen, Oct. 1884)
Context: I tell you, if one wants to be active, one must not be afraid of going wrong, one must not be afraid of making mistakes now and then. Many people think that they will become good just by doing no harm - but that's a lie, and you yourself used to call it that. That way lies stagnation, mediocrity.
Just slap anything on when you see a blank canvas staring you in the face like some imbecile. You don't know how paralyzing that is, that stare of a blank canvas is, which says to the painter, You can't do a thing. The canvas has an idiotic stare and mesmerises some painters so much that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid in front of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the real, passionate painter who dares and who has broken the spell of 'you can't' once and for all.
Life itself, too, is forever turning an infinitely vacant, dispiriting blank side towards man on which nothing appears, any more than it does on a blank canvas. But no matter how vacant and vain, how dead life may appear to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, who knows something, will not be put off so easily. He wades in and does something and stays with it, in short, he violates, "defiles" - they say. Let them talk, those cold theologians.
“Everything in life has a place, and when one thing moves, it must go somewhere else.”
Source: A Place Called Here
"Podstawy polityki polskiej", Przegląd Wszechpolski (July 1905): 343, 349, 358-359.
Source: https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/14108295.alexis_karpouzos?page=2
Source: Cardinal Zerbo: Catholic sentinels and mediators among violence and conflict http://www.fides.org/en/news/68204-AFRICA_MALI_Cardinal_Zerbo_Catholic_sentinels_and_mediators_among_violence_and_conflict (24 June 2020)