"It is exactly as it was in the time of Socrates, according to the accusation brought against him: “Everyone understood how to instruct the young men; there was but one single individual who did not understand it – that was Socrates.” So in our time, “all” are the wise, there is only one single individual here and there who is a fool. So near is the world to having achieved perfection that now “all” are wise; if it were not for the individual cranks and fools the world would be absolutely perfect. Through all this God sits in heaven. No one longs to be away from the noise and clamor of the moment in order to find the stillness in which God dwells. While man admires man, and admires him – because he is just like everyone else, no one longs for the solitude wherein one worships God. No one disdains this cheap intermission from aiming at the highest, by longing for the standard of the eternal! So important has the immediate itself become. It is for this reason that superficial disinterestedness is needed. Oh, that I might in truth present such a disinterested figure!"
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (1847), Swenson translation (1946) Princeton University Press, p. 297.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Socrates
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Socrates
169 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Socrates →
Related Quotes
"To give either to any public matter of interest or to any concern of my own, but I am in utter poverty by reason of m…"
"Where there is reverence there is fear, but there is not reverence everywhere that there is fear, because fear presum…"
"Wind puffs up empty bladders; opinion, fools."
"Hungern är bästa kryddan."
"Oh dear Pan and all the other gods of this place, grant that I may be beautiful inside. Let all my external possessio…"
"One should never do wrong in return, nor mistreat any man, no matter how one has been mistreated by him."
"I only wish that wisdom were the kind of thing that flowed ... from the vessel that was full to the one that was empty."
"Wonder is the feeling of a philosopher, and philosophy begins in wonder."
"In every one of us there are two ruling and directing principles, whose guidance we follow wherever they may lead; th…"
"μηδὲν πρὸ τοῦ δικαίου"