Quotes About Introspection

To be clear in my mind what I am to do, not what I am to know, except in so far as a certain understanding must precede every action. The thing is to understand myself…the thing is to find a truth which is true for me, to find the idea for which I can live and die.

He writes because for him it is a luxury which becomes the more agreeable and more evident, the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes.

To strive against the whole world is a comfort, to strive with oneself is dreadful.

man who lives under his own supervision, alone in the whole world

Compel a person to an opinion, a conviction, a belief - in all eternity, that I cannot do. But one thing I can do: I can compel him to become aware.

No me gustan las jóvenes que se consideran interesantes, pues sólo se llega a serlo tras un estudio de uno mismo, igual que en lo interesante se exhibe siempre la persona del artista. Una señora que pretenda gustar por ser interesante, ha de comenzar por agradarse a sí misma. Esto no es bonito: constituye una de las desventajas que la estética puede reprochar a la coquetería

As the Good itself is only one thing, so it alone wishes to be what helps us along. But the Good is not something external to us, like a slave who comes against his will when the master uses the whip. The place and the path are within each of us. And just as the place is the blessed state of the striving soul, so the path is the striving soul's continual transformation.

La fe […] comienza con los movimientos del infinito, y sólo más tarde pasa a los de lo infinito.

People who do not know how to remain silent, do not know how to talk.

to have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession made to man, but at the same time it is eternity's demand upon him.

Oh, to what degree human beings would become—human and lovable beings—if they would become single individuals before God!

AÅŸa cum filozofia începe cu îndoiala, o via?? care s? poat? fi numit? uman? începe cu ironia.

Wiederholung und Erinnerung sind die gleiche Bewegung, nur in entgegengesetzter Richtung; denn dasjenige, woran man sich erinnert, ist gewesen, wird rückwärts wiederholt, während die eigentliche Wiederholung eine Erinnerung in vorwärtiger Richtung ist.

To despair over oneself, in despair to will to be rid of oneself—this is the formula for all despair.

Jos en tiedä omasta takaa, en tiedä lainkaan.

When you read God's Word, in everything you read, continually to say to yourself: It is I to whom it is speaking, it is I about whom it is speaking—this is earnestness, precisely this is earnestness

A person in sorrow or distress knows why he sorrows or is distressed. If you ask a melancholic what reason he has for his condition, what it is that weighs him down, he will replay, 'I don't know, what it is, I cannot explain it.' (pp499)

It takes a talent to doubt, it requires no talent at all to despair (pp515)

Is it such a self-deception the present generation has need of, does it need to be trained to virtuosity in self-deception, or is it not rather sufficiently perfected already in the art of deceiving itself?

Kierkegaard lo niega: placer físico y reflexión no pueden convivir).

Si quien va a obrar pretende juzgarse antes a sí mismo por el resultado, no comenzará nunca.

Are we so thoroughly convinced that we have attained the highest point that there is nothing left for us but to piously make ourselves believe that we have not got so far — just for the sake of having something left to occupy our time? Is it such a self-deception the present generation has need of, does it need to be trained to virtuosity in self-deception, or is it not rather sufficiently perfected already in the art of deceiving itself?

What is education? I should suppose that education was the curriculum one had to run through in order to catch up with oneself

La hora del dolor puede volvernos altivos, si es que no nos quiebra: en ella, nada se ha quebrado…