“Now in case a man were able to maintain himself upon the pinnacle of the instant of choice, in case he could cease to be a man, in case he were in his inmost nature only an airy thought, in case personality meant nothing more than to be a kobold…The choice itself is decisive for the content of the personality, through the choice the personality immerses itself in the thing chosen, and when it does not choose it withers away in consumption.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

There are people so weak that they need loud noise and a distracting environment in order to be able to work. Why is this, unless for the fact that they have no command over themselves, except in an inverse sense?” ——————————————————– ~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843) Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

“To forget–all men wish to forget, and when something unpleasant happens, they always say: Oh, that one might forget! But forgetting is an art that must be practiced beforehand. The ability to forget is conditioned upon the method of remembering, but this again depends upon the mode of experiencing. Whoever plunges into his experiences with the momentum of hope, will remember so that he cannot forget. Nil admirari* is therefore the real philosophy. No moment must be permitted a greater significance than that it can be forgotten when convenient; each moment ought, however, to have so much significance that it can be recollected at will.” ——————————————————- ~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment Of Life (1843) Author: Soren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita *Nil admirari: To wonder at nothing.

“What are the infallible marks of friendship? Let antiquity answer: idem velle, idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia*, and also extremely tiresome. What are the infallible marks of friendship? Mutual assistance in word and deed. Two friends form a close association in order to be everything to one another, and that although it is impossible for one human being to be anything to another human being except to be in this way.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

*To wish and not to wish the same thing–this at last is firm friendship.

“Romantic love, however, as I have said, presents an analogy to morality by reason of the presumptive eternity which enobles it and saves it from being mere sensuality. For the sensual is the momentary. The sensual seeks instant satisfaction, and the more refined it is, the better it knows how to make an instant of enjoyment a little eternity. The true eternity in love, as in true morality, delivers it, therefore, first of all from the sensual. But in order to produce this true eternity a determination of the will is called for.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment Of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

“Now in case a man were able to maintain himself upon the pinnacle of the instant choice, in case he could cease to be a man, in case he were in his inmost nature only an airy thought, in case personality meant nothing more than to be a kobold, which takes part indeed in the movements, but nevertheless remains unchanged; in case such were the situation, it would be foolish to say that it might ever be too late for a man to choose, for in a deeper sense there could be no question of a choice.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

“One must guard against friendship. How is a friend defined? He is not what
philosophy calls the necessary other, but the superfluous third. What are
friendship’s ceremonies? You drink each other’s health, you open an artery
and mingle your blood with that of the friend. It is difficult to say when the
proper moment for this arrives, but it announces itself mysteriously; you feel
some way that you can no longer address one another formally. When once you
have had this feeling, then it can never appear that you have made a mistake,
like Geert Westphaler, who discovered that he had been drinking to friendship
with the public hangman.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment Of Life (1843)
Author: Soren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

Today’s Bloom:     Sunday, July 27, 2008

“Now in case a man were able to maintain himself upon the pinnacle of the instant choice, in case he could cease to be a man, in case he were in his inmost nature only an airy thought, in case personality meant nothing more than to be a kobold, which takes part indeed in the movements, but nevertheless remains unchanged; in case such were the situation, it would be foolish to say that it might ever be too late for a man to choose, for in a deeper sense there could be no question of a choice.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita

“Idleness is by no means as such a root of evil; on the contrary, it is a truly divine life, provided one is not himself bored. Idleness may indeed cause the loss of one’s fortune, and so on, but the high-minded man does not fear such dangers; he fears only boredom. The Olympian gods were not bored, they lived happily in happy idleness. A beautiful woman, who neither sews nor spins nor bakes nor reads nor plays the piano, is happy in her idleness, for she is not bored.”
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~Source: Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Victor Eremita