The Kierkegaarden

“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