Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren KierkegaardRead
Truth is not something you can appropriate easily and quickly. You certainly cannot sleep or dream yourself to the truth. No, you must be tried, do battle, and suffer if you are to acquire the truth for yourself. It is a sheer illusion to think that in relation to the truth there is an abridgement, a short cut that dispenses with the necessity for struggling for it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Truth cannot be easily obtained; it requires effort and struggle.
This quote emphasizes the idea that truth is not something that can be effortlessly acquired or learned in a passive way. Instead, it insists that one must actively engage in the pursuit of truth, which often involves facing challenges and enduring hardships. The notion that there could be an easy path to understanding or achieving truth is dismissed as an illusion, reinforcing the value of perseverance and struggle in the journey toward deeper understanding and insight.
Themes
TruthStruggleEffortUnderstandingPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about integrity, one might use this quote to illustrate the value of hard work in the pursuit of truth.
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
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