“Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.”
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.
“Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it. They are like that dwarf who guarded a kidnapped princess in his castle. One day he took a noon nap. When he woke up an hour later, she was gone. Hastily he pulls on his seven-league boots; with one step he is far past her.”
Søren Kierkegaard
“Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not.”
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