The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), VI : In the Depths of the Abyss
Context: I will not say that the more or less poetical and unphilosophical doctrines that I am about to set forth are those which make me live; but I will venture to say that it is my longing to live and to live for ever that inspires these doctrines within me. And if by means of them I succeed in strengthening and sustaining this same longing in another, perhaps when it is all but dead, then I shall have performed a man's work, and above all, I shall have lived. In a word, be it with reason or without reason or against reason, I am resolved not to die. And if, when at last I die out, I die altogether, then I shall not have died out of myself — that is, I shall not have yielded myself to death, but my human destiny shall have killed me. Unless I come to lose my head, or rather my heart, I will not abdicate from life — life will be wrested from me.
“Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic — if it is pulled out I shall die.”
1847
1840s, The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1840s
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Sören Kierkegaard 309
Danish philosopher and theologian, founder of Existentialism 1813–1855Related quotes
“Not iron, trust me,
the heart within my breast. I am all compassion.”
V. 190–191 (tr. Robert Fagles).
Odyssey (c. 725 BC)
<span class="plainlinks"> I shall bid no Farewell https://allpoetry.com/poem/11694634--I-shall-bid-no-Farewell-by-Suman-Pokhrel</span>
From Poetry
Letter to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1146-47
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
Steadfast and gentle father, in your kindness respond to me, your unworthy servant, who has never, from her earliest childhood, lived one hour free from anxiety. In your piety and wisdom look in your spirit, as you have been taught by the Holy Spirit, and from your heart bring comfort to your handmaiden.
Letter to Bernard, Abbot of Clairvaux, 1146-47
Spoken on his deathbed to his sister-in-law, Sophie Weber (5 December 1791), from Mozart: The Man and the Artist, as Revealed in his own Words by Friedrich Kerst, trans. Henry Edward Krehbiel (1906)
Variant: The taste of death is on my tongue, I feel something that is not from this world (Der Geschmack des Todes ist auf meiner Zunge, ich fühle etwas, das nicht von dieser Welt ist).