Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren KierkegaardRead
Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence; its giddiness, like that which comes from gazing down into an infinite abyss, is infinite.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Boredom arises from the emptiness of existence, revealing the profound yet unsettling nature of life.
In this quote, Kierkegaard suggests that boredom is not a mere trivial feeling but is deeply connected to the human condition, stemming from the emptiness and absurdity found within existence. The comparison to gazing into an infinite abyss highlights the profound and unsettling realization that life can seem meaningless, yet from this realization, one can also find a kind of inexplicable exhilaration in contemplating the vastness of existence.
Themes
BoredomExistenceInfinityAbsurdityPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on existentialism, this quote can illustrate the complexities of human experience.
More from Soren Kierkegaard
All quotes βMen think that it is impossible for a human being to love his enemies, for enemies are hardly able to endure the sight of one another. Well, then, shut your eyes--and your enemy looks just like your neighbor.
Soren KierkegaardRead
How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn't it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the managerβI have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?
Soren KierkegaardRead
A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.
Soren KierkegaardRead
And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not.
Soren KierkegaardRead
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.
Soren KierkegaardRead
Similar quotes
We're all inseparably part of each other. We all coexist in each other.
Deepak ChopraRead
Fairness is a concept that holds only in limited situations. Yet we want the concept to extend to everything, in and out of phase. From snails to hardware stores to married life. Maybe no one finds it, or even misses it, but fairness is like love. What is given has nothing to do with what we seek.
Haruki MurakamiRead
It is the privilege of the gods to want nothing, and of godlike men to want little.
DiogenesRead
Life, this anti-entropy, ceaselessly reloaded with energy, is a climbing force, toward order amidst chaos, toward light, among the darkness of the indefinite, toward the mystic dream of Love, between the fire which devours itself and the silence of the Cold.
Albert ClaudeRead
Childlike surrender and trust, I believe, is the defining spirit of authentic discipleship.
Brennan ManningRead
Superstitions, bigotries, hypocrisies, prejudices, these phantoms, phantoms though they be, cling to life; they have teeth and nails in their shadowy substance, and we must grapple with them individually and make war on them without truce; for it is one of humanity's inevitabilities to be condemned to eternal struggle with phantoms.
Victor HugoRead