Facebook share Tweet This Email this
Truth always rests with the minority,
and the minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion,
while the strength of a majority is illusory,
formed by the gangs who have no opinion -
and who, therefore, in the next instant
(when it is evident that the minority is the stronger)
assume its opinion... while truth again reverts to a new minority.
- Soren Kierkegaard
I begin with the principle that all men are bores.
Surely no one will prove himself
so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Listen to the cry of a woman in labor at the hour of giving birth -
look at the dying man's struggle at his last extremity,
and then tell me whether something that begins and ends thus
could be intended for enjoyment.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil,
no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads.
This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world.
The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Get a Funny Quote of the Day each day by email or in your feed reader.
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The greatest hazard of all, losing one's self,
can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- Soren Kierkegaard
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The truth is a snare:
you cannot have it, without being caught.
You cannot have the truth
in such a way that you catch it,
but only in such a way that it catches you.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The highest and most beautiful things in life
are not to be heard about, nor read about, nor seen but,
if one will, are to be lived.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard
The minority is always stronger than the majority,
because the minority is generally formed by those
who really have an opinion.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- Soren Kierkegaard
People hardly ever make use of the freedom which they have,
for example, freedom of thought;
instead they demand freedom of speech as a compensation.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- Soren Kierkegaard
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Once you label me, you negate me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I am capable of grasping God objectively,
I do not believe, but precisely because
I cannot do this I must believe.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk.
Every day I walk myself into a state of well-being
and walk away from every illness.
I have walked myself into my best thoughts,
and I know of no thought so burdensome
that one cannot walk away from it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
When you read God's Word, you must
constantly be saying to yourself,
"It is talking to me, and about me."
- Soren Kierkegaard
Where am I? Who am I? How did I come to be here?
What is this thing called the world?
How did I come into the world?
Why was I not consulted?
And If I am compelled to take part in it,
Where is the director? I want to see him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
If I were to wish for anything,
I should not wish for wealth and power,
but for the passionate sense of potential -
for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible.
Pleasure disappoints; possibility never.
- Soren Kierkegaard
God creates out of nothing. Wonderful you say.
Yes, to be sure, but he does what is still more wonderful:
he makes saints out of sinners.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Never cease loving a person, and never give up hope for him,
for even the prodigal son who had fallen most low,
could still be saved; the bitterest enemy
and also he who was your friend could again be your friend;
love that has grown cold can kindle
- Soren Kierkegaard
Do you not know that there comes a midnight hour
when every one has to throw off his mask?
Do you believe that life will always let itself be mocked?
Do you think you can slip away a little before midnight
in order to avoid this? Or are you not terrified by it?
I have seen men in real life who so long deceived others
that at last their true nature could not reveal itself;...
In every man there is something which to a certain degree
prevents him from becoming perfectly transparent to himself;
and this may be the case in so high a degree,
he may be so inexplicably woven into relationships of life
which extend far beyond himself that he almost cannot reveal himself.
But he who cannot reveal himself cannot love,
and he who cannot love is the most unhappy man of all.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It is a truth universally acknowledged that
when one part of your life starts going okay,
another falls spectacularly to pieces.
- the movie Bridget Jones Diary
All people know the same truth.
Our lives consist of how we chose to distort it.
- the Woody Allen movie Deconstructing Harry
Bad taste is simply saying the truth before it should be said.
- Mel Brooks
If you are out to describe the truth,
leave elegance to the tailor.
- Albert Einstein
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
- Mark Twain
Truth is a tendency.
- R. Buckminster Fuller
A remark generally hurts in proportion to its truth.
- Will Rogers
The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.
- Oscar Wilde
Truth is beautiful, without doubt; but so are lies.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tell the truth, or someone will tell it for you.
- Stephanie Klein
Strike an average between what a woman thinks of her husband
a month before she marries him
and what she thinks of him a year afterward,
and you will have the truth about him.
- H. L. Mencken
My way of joking is telling the truth;
that is the funniest joke in the world.
- George Bernard Shaw
The rarest quality in an epitaph is truth.
- Henry David Thoreau
Always speak the truth,
think before you speak,
and write it down afterwards.
- Lewis Carroll
Truth is stranger than fiction,
but that is because Fiction is obliged
to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't.
- Mark Twain
If you're going to tell people the truth,
be funny or they'll kill you.
- Billy Wilder
The lawyer's truth is not Truth,
but consistency or a consistent expediency.
- Henry David Thoreau
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth.
- George Carlin
Man will occasionally stumble over the truth,
but most of the time he will pick himself up and continue on.
- Winston Churchill
The truth. It is a beautiful and terrible thing,
and should be treated with caution.
- J. K. Rowling
The words of truth are always paradoxical.
- Lao Tzu
The water in a vessel is sparkling;
the water in the sea is dark.
The small truth has words which are clear;
the great truth has great silence.
- Rabindranath Tagore
When a thing is funny, search it for a hidden truth.
- George Bernard Shaw
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
Soon we'll be out amid the cold world's strife.
Soon we'll be sliding down the razor blade of life.
But as we go our sordid sep'rate ways,
We shall ne'er forget thee, thou golden college days.
Hearts full of youth,
Hearts full of truth,
Six parts gin to one part vermouth.
- Tom Lehrer - song: Bright College Days,
album: An Evening Wasted With Tom Lehrer
Use the power of your word
in the direction of truth and love.
- don Miguel Ruiz
I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's
most effective criticism until you provoke him.
Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.
- Henry David Thoreau
Thank you for visiting: Truth always rests with the minority, by Soren Kierkegaard.
Please sign up on the form below to receive
my Free Daily Inspiration - Daily Quotes email.
You can also search my large collection of Funny Quotes.
May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.