To be is to be contingent: nothing of which it can be said that "it is" can be alone and independent. But being is a member of paticca-samuppada as arising which contains ignorance. Being is only invertible by ignorance.

Destruction of ignorance destroys the illusion of being. When ignorance is no more, than consciousness no longer can attribute being (pahoti) at all. But that is not all for when consciousness is predicated of one who has no ignorance than it is no more indicatable (as it was indicated in M Sutta 22)

Nanamoli Thera

Tuesday, July 22, 2025

Kierkegaard - some quotes


I know very well that what I write here will in the course of time be declared to be the loftiest wisdom. I also know that when that happens the shape of the world will not have changed one whit, because those who will be busy showing how profound and true this is will be, of course, assistant professors - those animal-creatures. If any class of men deserves to be called animals in comparison with the rest of us, it is preachers and professors.

Youths have lofty thoughts - but then he gets sensible and these thoughts are forgotten. The exceptions do not have a period of youthfulness. Their youth runs on in dark melancholy - and only when they are also fully educated and matured - only then do these thoughts awaken, and with the enthusiasm of youth.

A man says: I cannot practice self-denial. Charming! And not only that but he wants to be praised for his humility because he is humble enough to be satisfied with ethical shabbiness.
. . . We hypocritically abolish Christianity by saying we are much too humble to aspire to anything so lofty. We say: "I am too humble to want to be significant".

In our society idea-strength is regarded as weakness, and palpable strength is regarded as strength. A person who has the strength to live devoid of ideas is called strong.

"Deathbed renunciation" is like the kind of generosity with which someone threateningly required at pistol point to hand over his money chooses to give the affair a turn and say that he generously offers it as a gift.

Cuckolds - this is what people are in all matters. They know they are being cheated; by their wives who are 100% selfish, by their religion which they know is a fable. But they are such spineless wretches that they don't have the courage to break dependence to them.

Most men think that the more you think about life and the more knowledge you have the happier you become. But the ironical thing, is that it only increases sorrow.

The quality of an individual can be measured by the distance between his understanding and his willing.

When children play together, this relativity becomes actuality to them, an actuality in which they are, each one respectively, a significant magnitude. But then there comes a message, that little Peter, Hans, or Soren, or whatever the person is called, must go home. In this way the absolute disruptively intervenes.
An adult goes and talks with other earnest men about what he wants to be in the world, that he wants to be this and that, and it seems to the other earnest men that he is an earnest man, almost as earnest as the others. But what happens - suddenly there comes a message that he must go home - that is , the God-relationship asserts itself.
The child cannot be allowed to get stuck to the illusion that the relationship with the other children is the whole thing - for then comes the message that he must go home.

Just as a worldly man desires that which tends to nourish his love of life, likewise, he who wishes to live with eternity in mind constantly needs a dose of disgust with life lest he become foolishly enamoured of this world and, still more, in order that he may learn thoroughly to be disgusted and bored and sickened with the folly and lies of this wretched world.

Apart the last one all quotes are from Journals and Papers

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