WednesdayFeb 11, 2026
Quotes: 53419 Authors: 9969
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid.
The majority of men are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, terribly objective sometimes, But the real task is in fact to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.
During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is: not to take the risk. When once the risk has really Been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much.
Every truth is true only up to a point. Beyond that, by way of counter-point, it becomes untruth.
Life can only be understood backwards; But it must be lived forwards.
Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays.
Repetition is the reality and the seriousness of life.
What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.
The only analogy I have before me is Socrates. My task is a Socratic task, to revise the definition of what it is to be a Christian. For my part I do not call myself a 'Christian' (thus keeping the ideal free), but I am able to make it evident that the others are still less than I.
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
To live thus to cram today with eternity and not wait the next day the Christian has learnt and continues to learn (for the Christian is always learning) from the Pattern. How did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day He who from the first instant of His public life, when He stepped forward as a teacher, knew how His life would end, that the next day was His crucifixion; knew this while the people exultantly hailed Him as King (ah, bitter knowledge to have at precisely that moment!); knew, when they were crying, Hosanna!, at His entry into Jerusalem, that they would cry, 'Crucify Him!', and that it was to this end that He made His entry. He who bore every day the prodigious weight of this superhuman knowledge how did He manage to live without anxiety for the next day?
To the Christian, love is the works of love. To say that love is a feeling or anything of the kind is an unchristian conception of love. That is the aesthetic definition and therefore fits the erotic and everything of that nature. But to the Christian love is the works of love. Christ's love was not an inner feeling, a full heart and what not, it was the work of love which was his life.
I am so stupid that I cannot understand philosophy; the antithesis of this is that philosophy is so clever that it cannot comprehend my stupidity. These antitheses are mediated in a higher unity; in our common stupidity.
Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life. He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.
No time of life is so beautiful as the early days of love, when with every meeting, every glance, one fetches something new home to rejoice over.
The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman; and there is only one relationship possible: faith.
Genius, like a thunderstorm, comes up against the wind.
The case with most men is that they go out into life with one or another accidental characteristic of personality of which they say: Well, this is the way I am. I cannot do otherwise. Then the world gets to work on them and thus the majority of men are ground into conformity. In each generation a small part cling to their 'I cannot do otherwise' and lose their minds. Finally there are a very few in each generation who in spite of all life's terrors cling with more and more inwardness to this 'I cannot do otherwise'. They are the geniuses. Their 'I cannot do otherwise' is an infinite thought, for if one were to cling firmly to a finite thought, he would lose his mind.
This is all that I've known for certain, that God is love. Even if I have been mistaken on this or that point: God is nevertheless love.
One is not unpopular because he uses peculiar expressions; that just so happens; such terms become a fad, and by and by everybody, down to the last simpleton, uses them. But a person who follows through an idea in his mind is, and always will be, essentially unpopular. That is why Socrates was unpopular, though he did not use any special terms, for to grasp and hold his 'ignorance' requires greater vital effort than understanding the whole of Hegel's philosophy.
There are men who are wanting in the comparative, they as a rule are the most interesting.
Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other clause that it must be lived forward.
The way to love anything is to realize it might be lost.
Most people are subjective toward themselves and objective toward all others, frightfully objective sometimesbut the task is precisely to be objective toward oneself and subjective toward all others.
When one has once fully entered the realm of love, the world no matter how imperfect becomes rich and beautiful, it consists solely of opportunities for love.
Oh Luther, Luther; your responsibility is great indeed, for the closer I look the more clearly do I see that you overthrew the Pope and set the public on the throne.
Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self or it is that (which accounts for it) that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but (consists in the fact) that the relation relates itself to its own self.
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 the former expresses his idea most fully in death while the latter really enjoys the bitterness of failure.
Old age realizes the dreams of youth: look at Dean Swift; in his youth he built an asylum for the insane, in his old age he was himself an inmate.
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, who so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility.
Take away paradox from the thinker and you have the professor.
And if something should be found, particularly in the first part of the dissertation, that one is generally not accustomed to come across in scholarly writings, the reader must forgive my jocundity, just as I, in order to lighten the burden, sometimes sing at my work.
Spiritual superiority only sees the individual. But alas, ordinarily we human beings are sensual and, therefore, as soon as it is a gathering, the impression changeswe see something abstract, the crowd, and we become different. But 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.
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.
In the New Testament the Savior of the world, our Lord Jesus Christ, represents the situation thus: The way that leads to life is straight, the gate narrowfew be they who find it!now, on the contrary, to speak only of Denmark, we are all Christians, the way is as broad as it possibly can be, the broadest in Denmark, since it is the way in which we all are walking, besides being in all respects as convenient, as comfortable, as possible; and the gate is as wide as it possibly can be, wider surely a gate cannot be than that through which we all are going en masse.... Ergo the New Testament is no longer truth.
It takes moral courage to grieve; it requires religious courage to rejoice.
The truth is a snare: you cannot have it, without being caught. You cannot have the truth in such a way that you catch it, but only in such a way that it catches you.
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.
There are two kinds of geniuses. The characteristic of the one is roaring, but the lightning is meagre and rarely strikes; the other kind is characterized by reflection by which it constrains itself or restrains the roaring. But the lightning is all the more intense; with the speed and sureness of lightning it hits the selected particular points and is fatal.
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.
No grand inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiety and no spy knows how to attack more artfully the man he suspects, choosing the instant when he is weakest; nor knows how to lay traps where he will be caught and ensnared as anxiety knows how, and no sharp-witted judge knows how to interrogate, to examine the accused, as anxiety does, which never lets him escape...
People hardly ever make use of the freedom they have, for example, freedom of thought; instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
The essentially Christian is certainly the highest and the supremely highest, but, mark well, in such a way that to the natural man it is an offense. Anyone who, in defining the essentially Christian as the highest, omits the middle term of offense sins against it, is guilty of presumptuousness.... The way to the essentially Christian goes through offense. This does not mean that the approach to the essentially Christian should be to be offended by itthis would indeed be another way of preventing oneself from grasping the essentially Christianbut the offense guards the approach to the essentially Christian. Blessed is he who is not offended at it.
An individual in despair despairs over something.... In despairing over something, he really despair[s] over himself, and now he wants to get rid of himself. Consequently, to despair over something is still not despair proper.... To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneselfthis is the formula for all despair.
So to be sick unto death is, not to be able to dieyet not as though there were hope of life; no, the hopelessness in this case is that even the last hope, death, is not available. When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life; but when one becomes acquainted with an even more dreadful danger, one hopes for death. So when the danger is so great that death has become one's hope, despair is the disconsolateness of not being able to die.
The ever increasing intensity of despair depends upon the degree of consciousness or is proportionate to this increase: the greater the degree of consciousness, the more intensive the despair. This is everywhere apparent, most clearly in despair at its maximum and minimum. The devil's despair is the most intensive despair, for the devil is sheer spirit and hence unqualified consciousness and transparency; there is no obscurity in the devil that could serve as a mitigating excuse. Therefore, his despair is the most absolute defiance....
Compared with the person who is conscious of his despair, the despairing individual who is ignorant of his despair is simply a negativity further away from the truth and deliverance.... Yet ignorance is so far from breaking the despair or changing despair to nondespairing that it can in fact be the most dangerous form of despair.... An individual is furthest from being conscious of himself as spirit when he is ignorant of being in despair. But precisely thisnot to be conscious of oneself as spiritis despair, which is spiritlessness....
Sin is: before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not to will to be oneself, or in despair to will to be oneself. Thus sin is intensified weakness or intensified defiance: sin is the intensification of despair. The emphasis is on before God, or with a conception of God; it is the conception of God that makes sin dialectically, ethically, and religiously what lawyers call 'aggravated' despair.
To despair over one's sins indicates that sin has become or wants to be internally consistent. It wants nothing to do with the good, does not want to be so weak as to listen occasionally to other talk. No, it insists on listening only to itself, on having dealings only with itself; it closes itself up within itself, indeed, locks itself inside one more inclosure, and protects itself against every attack or pursuit by the good by despairing over sin.
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks, that we concentrate only on what is most significant and important.
Had I to carve an inscription on my tombstone I would ask for none other than 'The Individual.'
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.
Genius never desires what does not exist.
Geniuses are like thunderstorms. They go against the wind, terrify people, cleanse the air.
God does not think; he creates. He does not exist; he is eternal.
Job endured everything until his friends came to comfort him, then he grew impatient.
In addition to my other numerous acquaintances, I have one more intimate confidant .... My depression is the most faithful mistress I have known no wonder, then, that I return the love.
I feel as if I were a piece in a game of chess, when my opponent says of it: That piece cannot be moved.
During the first period of a man's life the greatest danger is not to take the risk. When once the risk has really been taken, then the greatest danger is to risk too much.
Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are.
Be that self which one truly is.
If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of potential for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
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.
It is through woman that ideality is born into the world and what were man without her! There is many a man who has become a genius through a woman, many a one a hero, many a one a poet, many a one even a saint; but he did not become a genius through the woman he married, for through her he only became a privy councillor; he did not become a hero through the woman he married, for through her he only became a general; he did not become a poet through the woman he married, for through her he only became a father; he did not become a saint through the woman he married, for he did not marry, and would have married but one the one whom he did not marry; just as the others became a genius, became a hero, became a poet through the help of the woman they did not marry.
Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.
All essential knowledge relates to existence, or only such knowledge as has an essential relationship to existence is essential knowledge.
Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it.
The paradox is really the pathos of intellectual life and just as only great souls are exposed to passions it is only the great thinker who is exposed to what I call paradoxes, which are ... grandiose thoughts in embryo.
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