My misfortune or what makes my life so difficult is that I am
stretched one key higher than other men and where I am and what I do are
concerned not only with the particular but always with a principle and
idea as well. The most the majority do is to think about which girl they
should marry; I had to think about marriage. So it is in everything.
It is basically the same with me now. The most the majority do is to
think of which appointment they should seek, and I am at present deeply
involved in the tension, in the battle of ideas, the question of
principles, concerning the extent to which these so-called Christian
professions are legitimate from the essentially Christian point of view.
No doubt what makes me unpopular is not so much the difficulty of my
books as it is my personal life, the fact that even with all my
endeavors I do not amount to anything (the finite teleology), do not
make money, do not get appointed to a job, do not become a Knight of
Denmark, but in every way amount to nothing and on top of that am
derided. To my mind this is what is great about me if there is anything
great. And this costs me struggle and strain, for I, too, am flesh and
blood — and yet this is precisely why I am unappreciated and mistreated.
— Søren Kierkegaard
Dec 27, 2013
Worldly success vs. true greatness
Don't speak of what you haven't done
Promptly to become emotional in the pulpit — instead of acting in actuality — and then to have it seem to the person himself and the audience as if the man had acted. Yes, Plato and Socrates were right: banish poets and also orators from the state.
On the whole, the Greek concept of a philosopher (that is, a thinker in ethical character) is much more appropriate to the communication of the essentially Christian than this spineless concept: an orator, a declaimer — instead of an implementer.
— Søren Kierkegaard
Nov 23, 2013
Existing-communication: knowing one's limitations, then speaking
To reduplicate [reduplicere] is to be what one says. Men are therefore better served by someone who does not speak in lofty strains but is what he says. I have never had the nerve to say that the world is evil, I make a distinction and say: Christianity teaches that the world is evil. But I do not dare say it, for that I am far from being sufficiently pure. But I have said: the world is mediocre, and my life expresses exactly that. But many a greenhorn of a clergyman stands and thunders that the world is evil — and what does his life in fact express. — I have never had the nerve to say that I would venture everything for Christianity. I still am not strong enough for that. I begin with something smaller. I know that I have ventured various things and I think and believe that God will educate me and teach me to venture more. But Mynster weeps at the thought that he is willing to sacrifice everything, that even if everyone falls away he will stand fast. God knows what he has ventured. One should never talk that way. The little bit of fever for an hour on Sunday only leaves more languor and indolence. A person should never talk about doing what he has not done. One may say: Christianity demands it, but since I am not tested in this way I dare say nothing of myself. I have always been independent, therefore I have always talked with great caution about the cares of livelihood. I am often reminded that I really have no experience, that here I speak as a poet.
O that there were truth in communication between man and man! One person defends Christianity, another attacks Christianity, and after all is said and done, when it comes to auditing their experiences, neither one nor the other cares much about Christianity — perhaps it is their career.
For my part, I have a thorn in the flesh from my early years. If I had not had it, I would easily have been far gone in worldliness. But I cannot, even if I wanted to very much. So I have no meritoriousness whatsoever, for what is meritorious about going along the right way when one is riding in a go-cart or about a horse's following the track when it is bridled with a sharp bit.
-- Soren Kierkegaard, 1848
May 25, 2013
From William Shakespeare
So, oft it chances in particular men,
That for some vicious mole of nature in them,
As, in their birth--wherein they are not guilty,
Since nature cannot choose his origin--
By the o'ergrowth of some complexion,
Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,
Or by some habit that too much o'er-leavens
The form of plausive manners, that these men,
Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,
Being nature's livery, or fortune's star,--
Their virtues else--be they as pure as grace,
As infinite as man may undergo--
Shall in the general censure take corruption
From that particular fault
- Hamlet, Act I, Scene IV
Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height.
- Henry V, Act III, Scene I
