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One must learn to know oneself before knowing anything else (gnocchi seauton). Not until a person has inwardly understood himself and then sees the course he is to take does his life gain peace and meaning.

— Søren Kierkegaard

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Knowledge

More quotes by Søren Kierkegaard

It belongs to the imperfection of everything human that man can only attain his desire by passing through its opposite.

The tyrant dies and his rule is over; the martyr dies and his rule begins.

Freedom succumbs to dizziness. Further than this, psychology cannot and will not go.

The Concept of Anxiety (1844)

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.

Either/Or (1843)

It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand, and what those things are.

All Søren Kierkegaard quotes →

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You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.

Julian Assange

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

It is not in the books of the Philosophers, but in the religious symbolism of the Ancients, that we must look for the footprints of Science, and re-discover the Mysteries of Knowledge.

Albert Pike Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (1871)

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

Attribution

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