Quote

During the first period of our lives the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much. By not risking at first one turns aside and serves trivialities in the second case, by risking too much, one turns aside to the fantastic and perhaps to presumption.

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
Lives
Danger
Risking
Firsts
Perhaps
Presumption
Second
Serves
First
Cases
Aside
Take
Risk
Fantastic
Much
Greatest
Period
Taken
Periods
Trivialities
Turns
Case
Triviality

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

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Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him, for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low, could still be saved the bitterest enemy and also he who was your friend could again be your friend love that has grown cold can kindle.
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Pleasure disappoints possibility never.
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One should be an enigma not just to others but to oneself too. I study myself. When I'm tired of that I light a cigar to pass the time, and think: God only knows what the good Lord really meant with me, or what He meant to make of me.
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The stone that was rolled before Christ's tomb might appropriately be called the philosopher's stone because its removal gave not only the pharisees but, now for 1800 years, the philosophers so much to think about.
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Learning to know anxiety is an adventure which every man has to affront if he would not go to perdition either by not having known anxiety or by sinking under it. He therefore who has leaned rightly to be in anxiety has learned the most important thing.
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The more men believe an idea to be true the greater the likelihood that the idea is mistaken. Those who are right usually stand alone.
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People have an idea that the preacher is an actor on a stage and they are the critics, blaming or praising him. What they don't know is that they are the actors on the stage he (the preacher) is merely the prompter standing in the wings, reminding them of their lost lines.
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Irony limits, finitizes, and circumscribes and thereby yields truth, actuality, content it disciplines and punishes and thereby yields balance and consistency.
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Christians remind me of schoolboys who want to look up the answers to their math problems in the back of the book rather than work them through.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Men are not on such intimate terms with the sublime that they really can believe in it
Soren Kierkegaard
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It is perhaps the misfortune of my life that I am interested in far too much but not decisively in any one thing all my interests are not subordinated in one but stand on an equal footing.
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On the whole, the longing for solitude is a sign that there still is spirit in a person and is a measure of what spirit there is.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Maturity consists in the discovery that there comes a critical moment where everything is reversed, after which the point becomes to understand more and more that there is something which cannot be understood.
Soren Kierkegaard
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If I were a physician, and if I were allowed to prescribe just one remedy for all the ills of the modern world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the Word of God were proclaimed in the modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence.
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In order to help another effectively, I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him... instruction begins when you put yourself in his place so that you may understand what he understands and in the way he understands it.
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It is not the path which is the difficulty rather, it is the difficulty which is the path.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.
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If I had a humble spirit in my service who, when I asked for a glass of water, brought me the world's costliest wines blended in a chalice, I should dismiss him, in order to teach him that my pleasure consists, not in what I enjoy, but in having my own way.
Soren Kierkegaard
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The thing that cowardice fears most is decision
Soren Kierkegaard