"No politics has been able, no politics is able, no worldliness has been able, no worldliness has been able to think through or to actualize to the ultimate consequences this idea: human-equality, human likeness [Menneske-Lighed]. To achieve perfect equality in the medium of world-likeness [Verds-Lighed], that is, in the medium that by nature is dissimilarity, and to achieve it in a world-like [verds-ligt], that is, differentiating way, is eternally, impossible, as one can see by the categories. If perfect equality, likeness, should be achieved, then worldliness would have to be completely eradicated, and when perfect equality, likeness, is achieved worldliness ceases to be. But is it not, then, like an obsession, that worldliness has gotten the idea of wanting to force perfect equality, likeness, and to force it in a worldly way – in worldliness, world-likeness! Ultimately only the essentially religious can with the help of eternity effect human equality [Menneske-Lighed], the godly, the essential, the not-worldly, the true, the only true possible human equality; and this is also why – be it said to tis glorification – the essentially religious is the true humanity [Menneskelighed]."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Absurdists19th-century philosophersChristian existentialistsNovelists from DenmarkPhilosophers from Denmark
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
The Point of View On My Work As An Author by Soren Kierkegaard (finished 1848) published by Peter Christian Kierkegaard 1859 translated by Howard and Edna Hong 1998 Princeton University Press P. 104 (Two “Notes” Concerning My Work As An Author by S. Kierkegaard)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Søren Kierkegaard
1813 – 1855
dänischer Philosoph, Theologe und Schriftsteller
245 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Søren Kierkegaard →
Related Quotes
"Individuals of the contemporary generation are fearful of existence … only in great masses do they dare to live, and …"
"If a person incurred some greater guilt but also improved and year by year steadily made progress in the good, it is …"
"His reverence will assert that there is too much philosophy in the book; His Right Reverence’s mental eye will seek i…"
"Can one blame the atheist for assuming His Reverence to be a bit lunatic, quite literally understood? The difficult d…"
"In order to learn true humility (I use this expression to describe the state of mind under discussion), it is good fo…"
"After a considerable walk through the forest, where I became acquainted with several of the little lakes I am so fond…"
"It is as useless for a person to want first of all to decide the externals and after that the fundamentals as it is f…"
"A master and way out of the league that the rest of us play in."
"If the ethical – that is, social morality – is the highest ... then no categories are needed other than the Greek phi…"
"It will be easy for us once we receive the ball of yarn from Ariadne (love) and then go through all the mazes of the …"