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God is present in the moment of choice, not in order to watch but in order to be chosen. Therefore, each person must choose. Terrible is the battle, in a person's innermost being, between God and the world. The crowning risk involved lies in the possession of choice.

Soren Kierkegaard

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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
Must
Choices
Choice
Crowning
World
Lying
Watches
Innermost
Moment
Watch
Orthodox
Christian
Choose
Possession
Moments
Terrible
Chosen
Order
Involved
Battle
Persons
Risk
Lies
Person
Present
Therefore

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

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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
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The self-assured believer is a greater sinner in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever.
Soren Kierkegaard
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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
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Your own tactic is to train yourself in the art of becoming enigmatic to everybody. My young friend, suppose there was no one who troubld himself to guess your riddle--what joy, then, would you have in it?
Soren Kierkegaard
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Where unclarity resides, there is temptation, and there it proves only too easily the stronger. Wherever there is ambiguity, wherever there is wavering, there is disobedience down at the bottom.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner put yourself in his place so that you may understand . . . what he learns and the way he understands it.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The absurd . . . the fact that with God all things are possible. The absurd is not one of the factors which can be discriminated within the proper compass of the understanding: it is not identical with the improbable, the unexpected, the unforeseen.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Talent warms-up the given (as they say in cookery) and makes it apparent genius brings something new. But our time lets talent pass for genius. They want to abolish the genius, deify the genius, and let talent forge ahead.
Soren Kierkegaard
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It was not to save a nation that Abraham went to sacrifice Isaac, nor to appease angry gods... Then why does Abraham do it? For God's sake... He does it for the sake of God because God demands proof of his faith... He was not justified by being virtuous, but by being an individual submitted to God in faith.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored therefore they created human beings.
Soren Kierkegaard
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It is not a gain that guilt should be wholly forgotten. On the contrary, it is loss and perdition. But it is a gain to win an inner intensity of heart through a deeper and deeper inner sorrowing over guilt.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Language has time as its element all other media have space as their element.
Soren Kierkegaard
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With the daguerreotype, everyone will be able to have their portrait taken . . . and at the same time everything is being done to make us all look exactly the same.
Soren Kierkegaard
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...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
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A poet is not an apostle he drives out devils only by the power of the devil.
Soren Kierkegaard
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. . .the larger the crowd, the more probable that that which it praises is folly, and the more improbable that it is truth and the most improbable of all that it is any eternal truth.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The deepest form of despair is to choose to be another than himself.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us - but not suckle us.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The truth must essentially be regarded as in conflict with this world the world has never been so good, and will never become so good that the majority will desire the truth.
Soren Kierkegaard
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To be lost in spiritlessness is the most terrible thing of all.
Soren Kierkegaard