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"When indeed does the temporal suffering oppress a man most terribly? Is it not when it seems to him that it has no significance, that it neither secures nor gains anything for him? Is it not when the suffering, as the impatient man expresses it, is without meaning or purpose?"
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"One third, more or less, of all the sorrow that the person I think I am must endure is unavoidable. It is the sorrow inherent in the human condition, the price we must pay for being sentient and self-conscious organisms, aspirants to liberation, but subject to the laws of nature and under orders to keep on marching, through irreversible time, through a world wholly indifferent to our well-being, toward decrepitude and the certainty of death. The remaining two thirds of all sorrow is homemade and, so far as the universe is concerned, unnecessary."
"Although it pains me to admit it, I am quite familiar with the holes in life. And this familiarity is due to the fact that I spend far more time in these holes than I spend on the paths that brought me to them."
"Discharge [disposal of karma] is in nature's hands. That's why there is restlessness. That is why these are the pains of dependency [association]. There are such times man has to face that it becomes difficult for him to pass even one hour."
"As long as there is worldly life, one is going to attain physical body, and as long as there is a body, there will be worldly miseries and troubles."
"If you allow it, [suffering] can be the means by which God brings you His greatest blessings."
"Someone may have a broken heart or someone may have a broken ego. Such people will have to suffer tremendously because of that."
Explore more quotes by Soren Kierkegaard
"What is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost?"
"With every increase in the degree of consciousness, and in proportion to that increase, the intensity of despair increases: the more consciousness the more intense the despair."
"Hence it is a superficial view (which presumably has never seen a person in despair, not even one's own self) when it is said of a man in despair, "He is consuming himself." For precisely this it is he despairs of, and to his torment it is precisely this he cannot do, since by despair fire has entered into something that cannot burn, or cannot burn up, that is, into the self."
"And when the hourglass has run out, the hourglass of temporality, when the noise of secular life has grown silent and its restless or ineffectual activism has come to an end, when everything around you is still, as it is in eternity, then eternity asks you and every individual in these millions and millions about only one thing: whether you have lived in despair or not."
"If this had not been the case with Abraham, then perhaps he might have loved God but notbelieved; for he who loves God without faith reflects upon himself, he who loves God believingly reflects upon God."
"The paradox in Christian truth is invariably due to the fact that it is the truth that exists for God. The standard of measure and the end is superhuman, and there is only one relationship possible: faith."
"It is quite true what Philosophy says: that Life must be understood backwards. But that makes one forget the other saying: that it must be lived-forwards. The more one ponders this, the more it comes to mean that life in the temporal existence never becomes quite intelligible, precisely because at no moment can I find complete quiet to take the backward- looking position."
"In relationship to God one can not involve himself to a certain degree. God is precisely the contradiction to all that is 'to a certain degree'."
"Everyone take his revenge on the world. My revenge consists in bearing my distress and anguish enclosed deeply within me while my laughter entertains everyone. If I see someone suffer I give him my sympathy, console him as best I can, and listen to him calmly when he assures me that I am fortunate. If only I can keep this up until the day I die I shall have had my revenge."
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