Tuesday, May 05, 2009

may 5th

Today is May 5th, which is Cinco de Mayo; but it is also the 196th birthday of Søren Kierkegaard. In honour of his birthday, here are some quotes from his writtings:
  • Be that self which one truly is.
  • Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.
  • God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say. Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful: he makes saints out of sinners.
  • How absurd men are! They never use the liberties they have, they demand those they do not have. They have freedom of thought, they demand freedom of speech.
  • Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.
  • Once you label me you negate me.
  • Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.
  • There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
  • It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
  • I divide my time as follows: half the time I sleep, the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep, for that would be a pity, for sleeping is the highest accomplishment of genius. [I just discovered this quote... which is great, since I have never remembered a dream]
  • It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived --forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward-looking position.

No comments: