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 →Men 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 manager—I 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
Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths: i.e., the Pagan stories are God expressing Himself through the minds of poets, using such images as He found there, while Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call 'real things'.
C. S. LewisRead
For the rest, they shall represent the other Free Peoples of the World: Elves, Dwarves, and Men, Legolas shall be for the Elves; and Gimli son of Gloin for the Dwarves. They are willing to go at least to the passes of the Mountains, and maybe beyond. For Men you shall have Aragorn son of Arathorn, for the Ring of Isildur concerns him closely.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
No one wants growth, constant expansion, physical swelling. Growth is not a human value; it's a means to the ends of sufficiency and security. Once we have enough, no one wants more, unless it is sold to us as a cheap substitute for something else, something non-material.
Donella MeadowsRead
Ah, there are no longer any children!
MoliereRead
If you go into an underground train in London - probably anywhere, but chiefly in London - there's that sense of almost entering a ghostly dimension. People are very still and quiet; they don't exchange many pleasantries.
Seamus HeaneyRead
We are born one time only, we can never start a new life equipped with the experience we've gained from the previous one. We leave childhood without knowing what youth is, we marry without knowing what it is to be married, and even when we enter old age, we don't know what it is we're heading for: the old are innocent children innocent of thier old age. In that sense, man's world is the planet of inexperience.
Milan KunderaRead