"No time of life is so beautiful as the early days of love, when with every meeting, every glance, one fetches something new home to rejoice over."- Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Vol. I
I love this quote. How true it rings! Oh- he has the same initials as I have! Oh- he’s such a good kisser. What a joyous time it is, that time of discovery when everything is so exciting and it is so easy to elevate the smallest thing and dismiss anything that does not align with the dream.
"The unhappiness of hope is never so painful as the unhappiness of memory."- ibid., Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Vol. I
Anticipation. When we anticipate something good, we are filled with excited energy. When we anticipate something negative, we are filled with dread. Kierkegaard suggests that anticipating something unhappy is never as bad as remembering something terrible that has occurred.
Remembering is worse than hoping. Yet, perhaps, better not to worry too much about what may go wrong- perhaps it won’t?
"Nothing finite, not the whole world, can satisfy the soul of the man who feels the need of the eternal."- ibid., Vol. II., Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or Vol. I
I think that Kierkegaard is speaking of himself. He is the man who feels the need of the eternal. In his writing he identifies stages of living in the world- the aesthetic, who dwells in the world of immediate satisfaction. The ethical, who slogs away playing by the rules. Religiousness A, a higher calling. Religiousness B, Christianity, the highest of all.
As a Christian thinker, I imagine that Kierkegaard is reflecting on his own life- the hierarchy in the ways of the world and the peace of spiritual fulfillment.
"In the world of the spirit, only he is fooled who fools himself."- Soren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling
We may, Kierkegaard suggests, be able to fool some of the people some of the time, and most of the people most of the time, but we ultimately can’t fool ourselves. Finally we must face the truth about who we are in our innermost being.
"The audience rushes out-
It was a bad performance
That's because I'm the only actor
and there are few humans
whose lives
will make an interesting play?'
Don't you agree?"- Ann Sexton
Oy- poor Ann Sexton. First of all, are we living our lives for others? For an audience? How sad. Secondly, if we are content with the choices we make, we can live deeply satisfying lives, and who cares what the audience thinks?
"To believe an ideality on the word of another is like laughing at a joke because someone has said it is funny, not because one has understood it."- Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript
“To believe an ideality” sounds, to me, like another way of saying, “to have faith.” In #64 above, Kierkegaard reflected on the importance of being honest with oneself. Here it sounds like he is questioning the very definition of faith, moving beyond the idea of faith to acceptance which comes totally from one’s own being and not, simply, from that one has been taught- “the word of another.”
"Even the man who does not get as far as faith will find occupation enough for a lifetime. But the high passion of faith is like the speed of light: the only absolute in a world of relativities. And the man who is too eager to exceed it may find himself moving steadily backwards."- Louis Mackey, Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet
Kierkegaard has made it clear that a deeply rooted, intimately personal, sense of faith is the highest goal. And achieving it SHOULD require a sense of struggle. It shouldn’t be too easy.
"Religion is not so foreign to human nature that a rupture is necessary in order to awaken it."- Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
Kierkegaard has articulated his stages on life’s way. As described, it seems that one can live a full lifetime in the aesthetic or ethical modalities. Here he seems to nudge us towards religiosity with the suggestion that the seed of a religious nature is planted within each human, accessible and available.
"Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir,-
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
Its past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless,- the disease
Not even God can heal;
'tis His institution,-
The complement of hell."- Emily Dickenson
This is a favorite poem. Dickenson captures the wrenching pain of remorse. In Jewish tradition we have an annual holiday, Yom Kippur, in which we confront our wrongdoing in order to let it go.
We hope it works.
If we can’t let it go, Dickenson describes the haunting and relentless remorse that follows. Remorse stemming from the Latin root- re-morse- to chew over and over again.
If we can’t let it go, even God can’t remove it from us, and we will live in hell with the never-ending reminder of our sinful failings.
"If all the world hated you and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The Talmud suggests that if one person calls you as ass, you can ignore it. If two people call you an ass, you should think about it. If three people call you an ass, buy a saddle.
Bronte suggests otherwise. If we are willing to look deep within, to examine our actions from inside out, from every perspective, and we still feel righteous in our choices, then we can make peace with our decisions and take comfort in our aloneness with our actions.
But it’s still alone-ness.
About this series-
I love words. I love when a word exactly captures the moment, the feeling. How it precisely describes something that you experienced but didn’t know exactly how to express. It’s like a warm bath or a deeply satisfying meal.
And beyond that- a collection of words. A deeply insightful phrase, thought-provoking and uplifting. A quote to remember.
I started collecting quotes when I was 16 years old. (1972) I’m 68 now, as I write these words, (2025), and there are 472 quotes in my collection. At this precise moment.
That’s not really that many over the course of 52 years. I guess I am fairly discriminating. Sometimes years can go by and the collection lays dormant. In other years there is a great harvest of quotes.
These are not necessarily famous quotes, things you’ll often hear referenced. For the most part, they simply represent words that I read that made me stop for a moment to meditate and bask in their impact. And quotes I enjoy reading and re-reading and quoting myself!
These quotes represent the evolution of my thinking over the course of 52 years. I look forward to pondering what it is that made me find each one meaningful enough to save.
Comments