“Desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor.”
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.
“The tremendous poetical power of folk literature is manifest, among other ways, in its power to desire. In comparison, desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor. Desire in folk literature is fully aware that the neighbor does not possess what it seeks any more than it does itself.”
Søren Kierkegaard
“Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“No one comes back from the dead; no one has come into the world without weeping. No one asks when one wants to come in; no one asks when one wants to go out.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“My time I divide as follows: the one half I sleep; the other half I dream. I never dream when I sleep; that would be a shame, because to sleep is the height of genius.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary sourceMore quotes by Søren Kierkegaard →
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