The Kierkegaarden

“There is no follower [of Christ] at second hand. The first and the latest generation are essentially alike, except that the latter generation has the occasion in the report of the contemporary generation, whereas the contemporary generation has the occasion in its immediate contemporaneity and therefore owes no generation anything.”
——————————————————–

~Source: Philisophical Fragments (1844)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes Climacus

“Our problem is now before us…The poet’s task will be to find a solution, some point of union, where love’s understanding may be realized in truth, God’s anxiety be set at rest, his sorrow banished. For the divine love is that unfathomable love which cannot rest content with that which the beloved might in his folly prize as happiness.”
——————————————————–

~Source: Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes Climacus

“Is it not strange that there should be something such in existence, in relation to which everyone who knows it knows also that he has not invented it, this pass-me-by not stopping or capable of being stopped even if we approached all men in turn? This strange fact deeply impresses me, and casts over me a spell; for it constitutes a test of the hypothesis, and proves its truth. It would certainly be absurd to expect a man that he should of his own accord discover that he did not exist.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Philosophical Fragments (1844) Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes Climacus

“To hold the fate of many human beings in one’s hand, to transform the world, and then constantly understand that this is a jest: aye, that is earnestness indeed! But in order that this should be possible all finite passions must be atrophied, all selfishness outrooted, both the selfishness which wants to have everything, and the selfishness which proudly turns its back on everything. But just herein sticks the difficulty, and here arises the suffering in the dying away from self; and while it is the specific criterion of the ethical that is so easy to understand in its abstract expression, it is correspondingly difficult to understand in concreto.” ——————————————————– ~Source: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the “Philosophical Fragments” (1846) Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes Climacus

“Now if the learner is to acquire the Truth, the Teacher must bring it to him; and not  only so, but he must also give him the condition necessary for understanding it. For if the learner were in his own person the condition for understanding the Truth, he need only recall it.”
——————————————————–

~Source: Philosophical Fragments (1844)
Author: Søren Kierkegaard using the pseudonym Johannes Climacus