The Point of View Quotes

“Such works are mirrors: when an ape peers into them, no Apostle can be seen looking out.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“To live in the unconditional, inhaling only the unconditional, is impossible to man; he perishes lioke the fish forced to live in the air. But on the other hand, without relating himself to the unconditional, man cannot in the deepest sense be said to 'live'.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“One must see how laughter is feared above all other sorts of attack, how even a man who had boldly encountered mortal peril for a cause that did not concern him, would hardly hesitate to betray father and mother in case the danger were laughter.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“It is not truth that rules the world but illusions.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“In order to help another effectively I must understand more than he – yet first of all surely I must understand what he understands. If I do not know that, my greater understanding will be of no help to him. If, however, I am disposed to plume myself on my greater understanding, it is because I am vain or proud, so that at bottom, instead of benefiting him, I want to be admired.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“And the desire to prevent all misunderstanding about an enterprise one is about to undertake is a thing that could occur only to a youth. There is nothing that so easily gets beyond one's control and so easily becomes misunderstood, as a misunderstanding. Even if one were to undertake nothing more than merely to avoid misunderstanding – then in that case one would presumably become the most thoroughly misunderstood of all men.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“None has more contempt for what it is to be a man than they who make it their profession to lead the crowd.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“To love him who makes one happy, is to a reflective mind an inadequate definition of what love is; to love him who made one unhappy out of malice, is virtue; but to love him who out of love, though by a misunderstanding, yet out of love, made one unhappy – that is the formula never yet enunciated, so far as I know, but nevertheless the normal formula in reflection for what it is to love.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“And one thing the author must not forget: his purpose.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View

“If you can do that, if you can find exactly the place where the other is and begin there, you may perhaps have the luck to lead him to the place where you are.
For to be a teacher does not mean simply to affirm that such a thing is so, or to deliver a lecture, etc. No, to be a teacher in the right sense is to be a learner.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View