Quote

Knowledge is an attitude, a passion, actually an illicit attitude. For the compulsion to know is like dipsomania, erotomania, and homicidal mania, in producing a character that is out of balance. It is not at all that the scientist goes after the truth.

Soren Kierkegaard

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Soren Kierkegaard
Age: 42 †
Born: 1813
Born: January 1
Died: 1855
Died: January 1
Literary Critic
Novelist
Philosopher
Poet
Theologian
Writer
København
Kierkegaard
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Victor Eremita
Climacus
Anti-Climacus
Sören Aaby Kierkegaard
Producing
Truth
Scientist
Character
Balance
Like
Attitude
Illicit
Goes
Homicidal
Passion
Mania
Knowledge
Compulsion
Actually

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

Image
... all comparisons injure.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
In the deepest sense, the being in a state of sin is the sin, the particular sins are not the continuation of sin, they are expressions of its continuation.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
There are, as is known, insects that die in the moment of fertilization. So it is with all joy: life's highest, most splendid moment of enjoyment is accompanied by death.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The most terrible fight is not when there is one opinion against another, the most terrible is when two men say the same thing -- and fight about the interpretation, and this interpretation involves a difference of quality.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
...the person who surrenders absolutely to God, with no reservations, is absolutely safe. From this safe hiding-place he can see the devil , but the devil cannot see him.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
In the eyes of God, the infinite spirit, all the millions that have lived and now live do not make a crowd. He only sees each individual
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Without risk, faith is an impossibility.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The difference between a man who faces death for the sake of an idea and an imitator who goes in search of martyrdom is that whilst the former expresses his idea most fully in death it is the strange feeling of bitterness which comes from failure that the latter really enjoys the former rejoices in his victory, the latter in his suffering.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
All moral elevation consists first and foremost of being weaned from the momentary.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Those who dream must be awakened, and the deeper the people are who slumber, or the deeper they slumber, the more important it is that they be awakened, and the more powerfully must they be awakened.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
To be a saint is to will the one thing.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die.
Soren Kierkegaard
Image
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.
Soren Kierkegaard