Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
Soren KierkegaardRead
For without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk, the greater the faith.
Interpretation
Taking risks is essential for developing faith; greater risks require greater faith.
This quote by Soren Kierkegaard suggests that faith and risk are intrinsically linked. Without embracing some level of risk, whether in decisions or beliefs, one cannot truly develop or experience faith. The deeper the risk taken, the stronger the faith must be to support it, highlighting the importance of courage and conviction in one’s beliefs and actions.
In practice
In a motivational speech about pursuing one's dreams, one could use this quote to encourage the audience to take bold steps in their lives.
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
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.
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?
A possibility is a hint from God. One must follow it.
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.
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.
What nature requires is obtainable, and within easy reach. It is for the superfluous we sweat.
As to the doubt of the soul I discover it to be false: a mood not a conclusion. My conclusion is the Faith. Corporate, organized, a personality, teaching. A thing, not a theory. It.
Once you let people know anything about what you think, that's it, you're dead. Then they'll be jumping about in your mind, taking things out, holding them up to the light and killing them, yes, killing them, because thoughts are supposed to stay and grow in quiet, dark places, like butterflies in cocoons.
Religion is an illusion and it derives its strength from the fact that it falls in with our instinctual desires.
Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand-in-hand. It is because fear is at the basis of those two things. In this world we can now begin a little to understand things, and a little to master them by the help of science, which has forced its way step by step against the Christian religion, against the churches, and against the opposition of all the old precepts.
Let us be moral. Let us contemplate existence.
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