“Recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality.”
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.
“For me nothing is more dangerous than to recollect. As soon as I have recollected a life relationship, that relationship has ceased to exist. It is said that absence makes the heart grow fonder. That is very true, but it becomes fonder in a purely poetic way. To live in recollection is the most perfect life imaginable; recollection is more richly satisfying than all actuality, and it has a security that no actuality possesses. A recollected life relationship has already passed into eternity and has no temporal interest anymore.”
Søren Kierkegaard
“Most people rush after pleasure so fast that they rush right past it.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“Desire in our age is simultaneously sinful and boring, because it desires what belongs to the neighbor.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“The most beautiful time is the first period of falling in love, when, from every encounter, every glance, one fetches home something new to rejoice over.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary source“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 Primary sourceMore quotes by Søren Kierkegaard →
“It is a paradoxical but profoundly true and important principle of life that the most likely way to reach a goal is to be aiming not at that goal itself but at some more ambitious goal behind it.”
— Arnold J. Toynbee Primary source“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less.”
— Marie Curie Disputed“All things truly wicked start from an innocence.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“The test of all beliefs is their practical effect in life. It be true that optimism compels the world forward, and pessimism retards it, them it is dangerous to propagate a pessimistic philosophy.”
— Helen Keller Primary sourceMemory Joy Actuality Recollection