Soren Kierkegaard — "The highest of all is not to understand the highest, but to act upon it."
The highest of all is not to understand the highest, but to act upon it.
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More from Soren Kierkegaard
"The greatest danger, that of losing one's own self, may pass off as quietly as if it were nothing; every other loss, an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc., is sure to be noticed."
"I can sum up in one sentence what directly led to my break with the established order of things: it was the complete and utter lack of seriousness, and that Christianity was being turned into a game."
"The present age has lost all passion and enthusiasm."
"The present state of the world and the whole of life is diseased. If I were a doctor and were asked for my advice, I should reply: Create silence! Bring men to silence!"
"People are like sheep, they follow the shepherd, and the shepherd is the crowd."
About Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish philosopher and theologian considered the founder of existentialism; Either/Or (1843) and Fear and Trembling (1843) explored the leap of faith. Closely associated with Friedrich Nietzsche (his existentialist successor working in the opposite theological direction) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (literary parallel exploring faith-and-despair). For an intellectual contrast, see G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealist of the totalizing system — Kierkegaard called Hegel's system a 'palatial residence' that nobody could actually live in — his entire authorship is structured against Hegelian abstraction in favor of the existing individual's inwardness.
The standard scholarly entry points to Soren Kierkegaard's work: Joakim Garff (University of Copenhagen, Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre) — Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography (2000); Walter Lowrie (Princeton, his major postwar English translator) — A Short Life of Kierkegaard (1942); C. Stephen Evans (Baylor University, philosophy of religion) — Kierkegaard: An Introduction (2009). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Soren Kierkegaard.