“There are particular occasions when one may be most painfully moved to see a person standing utterly alone in the world. The other day I saw a poor girl walking utterly alone to church to be confirmed.”
Søren Kierkegaard
The quote comes from the Diapsalmata, a collection of aphorisms that opens Either/Or (1843). Kierkegaard published the book under the pseudonym Victor Eremita, and within it the Diapsalmata are attributed to a further fictional figure called “A,” a young aesthete. Kierkegaard deliberately used such pseudonyms to signal that these viewpoints were not necessarily his own.
Either/Or (Primary source)
Either/Or, published under the pseudonym Victor Eremita (“victorious hermit”), presents a dialectical exploration of two contrasting life views: the aesthetic and the ethical.
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— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“Real enjoyment consists not in what one enjoys but in the idea.”
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— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary sourceLoneliness Alone Religion Sympathy