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

More quotes by Soren Kierkegaard

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...the greatest thing each person can do is to give himself to God utterly and unconditionally - weaknesses, fears, and all. For God loves obedience more than good intentions or second-best offerings, which are all too often made under the guise of weakness.
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Language has time as its element all other media have space as their element.
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Job endured everything - until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
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There are many people who reach their conclusions about life like schoolboys: they cheat their master by copying the answer out of a book without having worked the sum out for themselves.
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The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.
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... all comparisons injure.
Soren Kierkegaard
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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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Do it or don't do it - you will regret both.
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Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness I have walked myself into my best thoughts.
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Nothing is as heady as the wine of possibility
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A genius may perhaps be a century ahead of his age and hence stands there as a paradox, but in the end, the race will assimilate what was once a paradox, so it is no longer paradoxical.
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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Only the noble of heart are called to difficulty.
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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But doubt is wily and cunning and never, as it is sometimes said to be, loud or defiant. It is unassuming and sly, not bold or assertive - and the more unassuming, the more dangerous.
Soren Kierkegaard
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People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.
Soren Kierkegaard
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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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Purity of heart is to will one thing.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Death cannot explain itself. The earnestness consists precisely in this, that the observer must explain it to himself.
Soren Kierkegaard
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Preparation for becoming attentive to Christianity does not consist in reading many books ... but in fuller immersion in existence.
Soren Kierkegaard