Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren KierkegaardRead
On the whole, the longing for solitude is a sign that there still is spirit in a person and is a measure of what spirit there is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Longing for solitude indicates a person's inner spirit and depth.
This quote by Soren Kierkegaard suggests that a desire for solitude reflects a person's inner vitality and self-awareness. It implies that those who seek quiet and isolation do so not out of despair, but as a means of connecting with their true selves and nurturing their spirit, revealing the depth of their emotional and intellectual lives.
Themes
SolitudeSpiritSelf-AwarenessReflectionInner Self
In practice
Example use cases
During a discussion on personal growth, one might use this quote to emphasize the importance of solitude.
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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One man's remorse is another man's reminiscence.
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It is intolerable that in our country citizens should feel so upset and under assault because of their religious choice that they would conclude that they have to hide.
Francois HollandeRead
The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen. suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there. It might be good to open our eyes and see.
Thomas MertonRead
Those who came to the United States didn't realize they were white until they got here. They were told they were white. They had to learn they were white. An Irish peasant coming from British imperial abuse in Ireland during the potato famine in the 1840s, arrives in the United States. You ask him or her what they are. They say, "I am Irish." No, you're white. "What do you mean, I am white?" And they point me out. "Oh, I see what you mean. This is a strange land."
Cornel WestRead
If each side had been frankly contending for its own real wish, they would all have kept within the bounds of reason and courtesy; but just because the contention is reversed and each side is fighting the other side’s battle, all the bitterness which really flows from thwarted self-righteousness and obstinacy and from the accumulated grudges of the last ten years is concealed from them by the nominal or official "Unselfishness" of what they are doing or, at least, held to be excused by it.
C. S. LewisRead
The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave themselves webs
John Dos PassosRead