“Surrounded by hordes of people, busy with all sorts of secular matters, more and more shrewd about the ways of the world - such a person forgets himself, forgets his name divinely understood, does not dare to believe in himself, finds it too risky to be himself, far easier and safer to be like the others, to become a copy, a number, part of the crowd.”
Source: The Sickness unto Death
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Sören Kierkegaard 309
Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855Related quotes

Discourses on the Condition of the Great
Context: All the excesses, all the violence, and all the vanity of great men, come from the fact that they know not what they are: it being difficult for those who regard themselves at heart as equal with all men... For this it is necessary for one to forget himself, and to believe that he has some real excellence above them, in which consists this illusion that I am endeavoring to discover to you.

“A guy can do far far worse than surrounding himself with people who restore his faith in humanity.”
Source: Dash & Lily's Book of Dares

Counterterrorism and Cybersecurity: Total Information Awareness (2nd Edition), 2015

The Book of Adler, by Søren Kierkegaard, Hong 1998 p. 127
1840s, The Book on Adler (1846-1847)

As quoted in "From Bach to Kafka, or... about temptation - An interview by Emil Bassat http://darl.eu/intervie/84_05_30.htm" in Sofia News (30 May 1984).