Quotes About Sacrifice

The difference between an admirer and a follower still remains, no matter where you are. The admirer never makes any true sacrifices. He always plays it safe. Though in words, phrases, songs, he is inexhaustible about how highly he prizes Christ, he renounces nothing, gives up nothing, will not reconstruct his life, will not be what he admires, and will not let his life express what it is he supposedly admires.

to have faith is precisely to lose one's mind so as to win God.

Let us speak of this in purely human terms. Oh! how pitiable a person who has never felt the loving urge to sacrifice everything for love, who has therefore been unable to do so!

The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he meant to murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he meant to sacrifice Isaac—but precisely in this contradiction is the anxiety that can make a person sleepless, and yet without this anxiety Abraham is not who he is.

To believe is indeed to lose the understanding in order to gain God.

For it is great to give up one's wish, but it is greater to hold it fast after having given it up, it is great to grasp the eternal, but it is greater to hold fast to the temporal after having given it up.

The person who lives in the ethical sphere lives intentionally, intensively. Such a person possesses character and conviction, and is thus willing to sacrifice himself for something greater than oneself.

Now the story of Abraham has the remarkable property that it is always glorious, however poorly one may understand it; yet here again the proverb applies, that all depends upon whether one is willing to labor and be heavy laden. But they will not labor, and yet they would understand the story.

Is this the same teaching, when Christ says to the rich young man, Sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor; and when the priest says, Sell all that thou hast and...give it to me?

Oleminen ei ole mukavuuskysymys.

If a man in truth wills the Good then he must be willing to suffer all for the Good.

For my part I can in a way understand Abraham, but at the same time I apprehend that I have not the courage to speak, and still less to act as he did — but by this I do not by any means intend to say that what he did was insignificant, for on the contrary it is the one only marvel.

The one knight of faith can render no aid to the other.

Either the individual becomes a knight of faith by assuming the burden of the paradox, or he never becomes one.

For it is great to give up one's wish, but it is greater to hold it fast after having given it up, it is great to grasp the eternal, but it is greater to hold fast to the temporal after having given it up.

La angustia les resulta peligrosa a los hombres sin temple, y por eso la silencia, pero, pese a ello, renuncian a hablar de Abraham, y así lo hacen.

What is it to be God's elect? It is to be denied in youth the wishes of youth, so as with great pains to get them fulfilled in old age.

He says, Come unto me, etc., etc., then, by reason of the situation which furnishes the more express understanding, the consequences will always be exposure to danger, perhaps to mortal danger. On the other hand, where all are Christians, the situation is this: to call oneself a Christian is the means whereby one secures oneself against all sorts of inconveniences and discomforts, and the means whereby one secures worldly goods, comforts, profit, etc., etc.

joy and refreshment in contemplating the great men who have found that precious stone for which they sell all, even their lives... proceeding on their chosen course without vacillating...absorbed in themselves and in working towards their higher goal.

Is this the same teaching, when Christ says to the rich young man, Sell all that thou hast, and give it to the poor; and when the pastor says, Sell all that thou hast and – give it to me?

This sectarianism is an attempt to leap away from the narrow path of the paradox and become a tragic hero at a cheap price. The tragic hero expresses the universal and sacrifices himself for it. The sectarian punchinello, instead of that, has a private theatre, i.e. several good friends and comrades who represent the universal

The truth is that to become a Christian is to become unhappy for this life. The situation is this: the more thou hast to do with God, and the more He loves thee, the more wilt thou become, humanly speaking, unhappy for this life, the more thou wilt have to suffer in this life.

Only at the moment when his act is in absolute contradiction to his feeling is his act a sacrifice, but the reality of his act is the factor by which he belongs to the universal, and in that aspect he is and remains a murderer.

Abraham was greater than all, great by reason of his power whose strength is impotence, great by reason of his wisdom whose secret is foolishness, great by reason of his hope whose form is madness, great by reason of the love which is hatred of oneself.