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To assume that one’s existential task is completed when the individual is brought into right relation with society, that is, when the individual has been socialized, is to absolutize society and confuse society with God.

— Merold Westphal Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992)

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More quotes by Merold Westphal

Knowledge conceived as an instrument is a means to the end of power. The goal of philosophy, however, is not to gain power over the Absolute but to know it as it truly is.

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

Kierkegaard seeks to un-socialize the individual in order to un-deify society.

Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992)

It is precisely the acceptance of political, ethical, and religious heteronomy which leads Hegel to label Judeo-Christian culture a slave culture.

History and Truth in Hegel’s Phenomenology (1979)

The story of German idealism is the story of Kant and the aftermath.

It is the shared bad faith by which individuals help each other sustain the illusion that they can shirk their spiritual destiny by joining the public.

Kierkegaard’s Critique of Reason and Society (1992)

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Most intellectual people do not believe in God, but they fear him just the same.

Wilhelm Reich Philosophy : An Introduction to the Art of Wondering (2005)

When the mind is not dissipated upon extraneous things, nor diffused over the world about us through the senses, it withdraws within itself, and of its own accord ascends to the contemplation of God.

Basil of Caesarea

Once you accept the existence of God — however you define him, however you explain your relationship to him — then you are caught forever with his presence in the center of all things.

Morris West The Clowns of God (1981)

God seeks comrades and claims love,
the Devil seeks slaves and claims obedience.

Rabindranath Tagore Fireflies (1928)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Merold Westphal (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.