Quote #48

What afflicts the adult is not to much the illusion of hope as, no doubt among other things, the grotesque illusion of looking down from some supposedly higher vantage-point, free from illusion, upon the illusions of the young. (p. 89)

More from Soren Aabye Kierkegaard

  1. What characterizes despair is just this - that it is ignorant of being despair. (p. 75)
  2. In spiritual terms the human being does not arrive over the years and as a matter of course at anything. No idea could be more directly opp…
  3. What we call worldliness simply consists of such people who, if one may so express it, pawn themselves to the world. (p. 65)
  4. Purely philosophically it could be a subtle question whether it is possible both to be in despair and to be quite clear what one despairs o…
  5. If I have ventured wrongly, very well, life then helps me with its penalty. But if I haven't ventured at all, who helps me then? (pp. 64 - …
  6. The initial expression of defiance is precisely despair over one's weakness. (p. 97)
  7. The world has generally no understanding of what is truly horrifying. The despair that not only does not cause any inconvenience in life, b…
  8. Far from the self succeeding increasingly in being itself, it becomes increasingly obvious that it is a hypothetical self. (p. 100)

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