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
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
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
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
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
Love does not alter the beloved, it alters itself.
- 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
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
Life can only be understood backwards;
but it must be lived forwards.
- 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
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
People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand
my complaint about them not understanding me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The self-assured believer is a greater sinner
in the eyes of God than the troubled disbeliever
- 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 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
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
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
The tyrant dies and his rule is over,
the martyr dies and his rule begins
- Soren Kierkegaard
Far from idleness being the root of all evil,
it is rather the only true good.
- 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
Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste
that they hurry past it.
- 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
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
Pleasure disappoints, possibility never
- 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
Prayer doesn't change God, but changes him who prays
- Soren Kierkegaard
Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Be that self which one truly is.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Once you label me, you negate me.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Face the facts of being what you are,
for that is what changes what you are.
- 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
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
Our life always expresses the result of our dominant thoughts.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The function of prayer is not to influence God,
but rather to change the nature of the one who prays.
- Soren Kierkegaard
At the bottom of enmity between strangers lies indifference.
- Soren Kierkegaard
It seems essential, in relationships and all tasks,
that we concentrate only
on what is most significant and important.
- 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
It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
- Soren Kierkegaard
He who joyfully marches in rank and file
has already earned my contempt.
He has been given a large brain by mistake,
since for him the spinal cord would suffice.
- Albert Einstein
I was losing interest in politics,
when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me again.
What I have done since then is pretty well known.
- Abraham Lincoln
Friendship is a thing most necessary to life,
since without friends no one would choose to live,
though possessed of all other advantages.
- Aristotle
It had long since come to my attention
that people of accomplishment
rarely sat back and let things happen to them.
They went out and happened to things.
- Leonardo da Vinci
We cannot despair of humanity,
since we ourselves are human beings.
- Albert Einstein
Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others,
you should put a good deal of thought
into the happiness that you are able to give.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
Since you are the one who has to live with your choices,
be sure they are your own.
- Alan Cohen
Since new developments are
the products of a creative mind,
we must therefore stimulate and encourage
that type of mind in every way possible.
- George Washington Carver
The third certainty of life, after death and taxes,
is that nothing will work out the way you want.
Life is fully as bad as you think it is.
Choose to live joyfully anyway.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Go forth, and play joyfully in the garden of life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.
- Joseph Campbell
Hold on... Joyfully.
Holding-on does not have to be
a desperate teeth-gritting kind of holding-on.
Holding-on can be a joyful
"this is just the nature of Life,
so I may as well enjoy it"
kind of holding-on.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
A life lived Boldly and Joyfully is a Heroic Life.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Happiness comes from a conscious choice to live life joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Life cannot be lived fully or joyfully if
our thoughts are focused on regretting the past,
preoccupied with anticipating the future,
or lost in the mind-fog of unconscious habitual behavior.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Know that when you live joyfully,
you radiate your light into the world.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
All life is change.
Release your attachment to the way things have been,
and wend your way joyfully
through life's unfolding majesty.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Hold on... Joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Know that life is most joyfully lived boldly -
with courage and intent.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
Happiness is not the absence of problems,
but the willingness to deal with them joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
There is so much we can never know.
Breathe deeply and relax into the not-knowing.
There is much that we do not have to know
in order to live joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I live in the moment, and I live joyfully.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
I didn't make it all the way through third grade for nothing.
- the movie The Rescuers Down Under
Life is a moderately good play
with a badly written third act.
- Truman Capote
Greetings, cosmic children of the universe.
Welcome to my serenity circle.
Please leave all bad vibes outside the healing vortex.
- the movie Shrek the Third (2007)
All truth passes through three stages:
First, it is ridiculed;
Second, it is violently opposed;
Third, it is accepted as self-evident.
- Arthur Schopenhauer
When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln
Clarke's Third Law:
Any sufficiently advanced technology
is indistinguishable from magic.
- Arthur C. Clarke
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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.