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At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- 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
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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
Be that self which one truly is.
- 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
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- 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
If I am capable of grasping God objectively,
I do not believe, but precisely because
I cannot do this I must believe.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Once you label me, you negate me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- 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
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- 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
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
- 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
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- 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 tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- 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 self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- Soren Kierkegaard
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- 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
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.
- 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
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
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
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
When you read God's Word, you must
constantly be saying to yourself,
"It is talking to me, and about me."
- 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
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
The universe we observe has precisely
the properties we should expect
if there is, at bottom, no design,
no purpose, no evil, no good,
nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
- Charles Darwin
There is more of good nature than of good sense
at the bottom of most marriages.
- Henry David Thoreau
I truly believe that happiness is possible...
even when you're thirty-three
and have a bottom the size of two bowling balls.
- the movie Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason
The heart of a mother is a deep abyss
at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
- Honore de Balzac
A riot is, at bottom, the language of the unheard.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The reason why men do not obey us,
is because they see the mud at the bottom of our eye.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge
and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you,
you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.
- A. A. Milne (Winnie-The-Pooh)
Not paying a just wage, not giving work,
only because one is looking at the bottom line,
at the budget of the company, seeking only profit -
that is against God.
- Pope Francis
There's a fine line between genius and insanity.
I have erased this line.
- Oscar Levant
Faced with the choice between changing one's mind
and proving that there is no need to do so,
almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
- John Kenneth Galbraith
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice.
In practice there is.
- Yogi Berra
The difference between school and life?
In school, you're taught a lesson and then given a test.
In life, you're given a test that teaches you a lesson.
- Tom Bodett
Early in life I had to choose between honest arrogance
and hypocritical humility.
I chose the former and have seen no reason to change.
- Frank Lloyd Wright
Life is a constant oscillation
between the sharp horns of dilemmas.
- H. L. Mencken
The jump is so frightening
between where I am,
and where I want to be.
Because of all I may become,
I will close my eyes and leap.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
The difference between stupidity and genius
is that genius has its limits.
- Albert Einstein
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 rule of life prescribed as an absolutely sacred rite
smoking cigars and also the drinking of alcohol
before, after and if need be during all meals
and in the intervals between them.
- Winston Churchill
Today is the bridge between acceptance and faith.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You know that place between sleeping and awake,
that place where you can still remember dreaming?
That's where I'll always think of you.
- James M. Barrie
Love one another but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea
between the shores of your souls.
- Khalil Gibran
We have nearly complete misunderstanding between
people of different faiths in Lake Wobegon,
and that's probably one reason why we get along so very well.
It's when you are trying to convince another person to think
the same way that you do that there is
friction and trouble between people.
But when you feel that the other person is
dumber than dirt, too dumb for words -
why waste your breath - you get along pretty well.
There's no bond between people that's quite so strong as
when people each feel slightly superior towards the other one.
- Garrison Keillor
Suspended between earth and sky,
my humanity draws from both,
my tendrils reach for the energies of each.
Spirit and Ground - equal yet opposite,
the lightness and the solidarity,
the ephemeral and the substantial.
The substantial is no more and no less
than the ephemeral - merely different.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
What is happiness except the simple harmony
between a man and the life he leads?
- Albert Camus
The pendulum of the mind alternates
between sense and nonsense,
not between right and wrong.
- Carl Jung
Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW
is only a small step and quickly taken.
- Mark Twain
Every mind must make its choice
between truth and repose.
It cannot have both.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
- Khalil Gibran
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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.