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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
Related topics: Values Positive Wisdom
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard
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Thank You,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- 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
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- 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
To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily.
Not to dare is to lose oneself.
- 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
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- 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
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
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
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
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- 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
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- 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
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
Once you label me, you negate 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
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- 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
Faith is the highest passion in a human being.
Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
- 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
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
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
When you read God's Word, you must
constantly be saying to yourself,
"It is talking to me, and about me."
- 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
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- Soren Kierkegaard
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
- 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
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
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
The world moves, and ideas that were
once good are not always good.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
I was born on the prairies where the wind blew free
and there was nothing to break the light of the sun.
I was born where there were no enclosures.
- Geronimo
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back
and realize they were the big things.
- Robert Brault
The word "happiness" would lose its meaning
if it were not balanced by sadness.
- Carl Jung
The simplest questions are the most profound.
Where were you born?
Where is your home?
Where are you going?
What are you doing?
Think about these once in a while
and watch your answers change.
- Richard Bach
We could never learn to be brave and patient,
if there were only joy in the world.
- Helen Keller
The formula for achieving a successful relationship is simple:
you should treat all disasters as if they were trivialities
but never treat a triviality as if it were a disaster.
- Quentin Crisp
I long to accomplish a great and noble task,
but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks
as if they were great and noble.
- Helen Keller
If you were a warrior,
you would know that the worst thing
one can do is confront human beings directly.
- Carlos Castaneda
Live as if you were to die tomorrow.
Learn as if you were to live forever.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
There are those that look at things
the way they are, and ask "Why?"
I dream of things that never were, and ask "Why not?"
- Robert F. Kennedy paraphrase of George Bernard Shaw
Whenever you do a thing,
act as if all the world were watching.
- Thomas Jefferson
You see things and you say, Why?
But I dream things that never were and say, Why not
- George Bernard Shaw
The problems of the world cannot possibly
be solved by skeptics or cynics
whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities.
We need men who can dream of things that never were.
- John F. Kennedy
Look at everything as though you were seeing it
either for the first or last time.
Then your time on earth will be filled with glory.
- Betty Smith
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness,
and the word happy would lose its meaning
if it were not balanced by sadness.
It is far better take things as they come along
with patience and equanimity.
- Carl Jung
While they were saying among themselves
it cannot be done, it was done.
- Helen Keller
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life so that when you die,
the world cries and you rejoice.
- Indian Proverb
Half of everything you were ever taught is wrong;
the question is which half.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Act as if it were impossible to fail.
- Dorthea Brande
Most unhappiness comes from resisting life.
Occasionally, you have such a strong commitment
to changing the world order that it is worth
struggling against the flow of life.
But don't live your life as if each minor happening
were a matter of life and death.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If we all worked on the assumption that what is accepted as true
were really true, there would be little hope of advance.
- Orville Wright
Hide not your talents,
they for use were made.
What's a sundial in the shade?
- Benjamin Franklin
Who were you before you put yourself last.
- Mary Anne Radmacher
Forgive and give as if it were your last opportunity.
Love like there's no tomorrow, and if tomorrow comes, love again.
- Max Lucado
Maybe I could have loved you better.
Maybe you should have loved me more.
Maybe our hearts were just next in line.
Maybe everything breaks sometime.
- Jewel
The good news is that you aren't
as important as you thought you were.
Relax. The weight of the world
is not on your shoulders.
Take a day off.
Go for a long silent walk in the woods.
The world will still be there tomorrow -
as good and as bad as ever.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
If all misfortunes were laid in one common heap
whence everyone must take an equal portion,
most people would be contented to take their own and depart.
- Socrates
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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