“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
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.”
— 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“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 source“Pleasure disappoints; possibility does not.”
— Søren Kierkegaard Primary sourceMore quotes by Søren Kierkegaard →
“You know I don’t love any one but you. You shouldn’t mind because some one else loved me.”
— Ernest Hemingway Primary source“This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson Primary source“Time after time, history ran over the luddites and romanticists, those who sought to restore the old and delay the new. And every time, history did it with faster, more reliable and more advanced vehicles.”
— Winston Churchill Disputed“It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.”
— Winston Churchill Primary source