Lee
The Present Age
Prescient in Kierkegaard’s thoughts and social critiques from start to finish, but I did feel like the first half was loaded with heavy hitting quotes. It’s said plenty of time for various authors and philosophers, but I’m always baffled when a sentiment from nearly 200 years ago, still stand the test of time and human error.
- “Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm, and shrewdly relapsing into repose.” (pg. 3)
- "Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.” (pg. 3)
- "But the present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete in-dolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed." (pg. 4)
- “However well-meaning and strong the individual man may be (if he could only use his strength), he still has not the passion to be able to tear himself from the coils and seductive uncertainty of reflection. Nor do his surroundings supply the events or produce the general enthusiasm necessary in order to free him.” (pg. 4-5)
- "A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere." (pg. 6)
- "The age of great and good actions is past, the present is the age of anticipation when even recognition is received in advance. No one is satisfied with doing something definite, every one wants to feel flattered by reflection with the illusion of having discovered at the very least a new continent.” (pg. 7)
- “Briefly, instead of being strengthened in their discernment and encouraged to do good, the guests would more probably go home with an even stronger predisposition to the most dangerous, if also the most respectable, of all diseases; to admire in public what is considered unimportant in private-since everything is made into a joke.” (pg. 9)
- "Formerly it was agreed that a man stood or fell by his actions; nowadays, on the contrary, every one idles about and comes off brilliantly with the help of a little reflection, Knowing perfectly well what ought to be done.” (pg. 9-10)
- “The present age with its sudden enthusiasms followed by apathy and indolence is very near the comic; but those who understand the comic see quite clearly that the comic is not where the present age imagines.” (pg. 10)
- "To be witty without possessing the riches of inwardness is like squandering money upon luxuries and dispensing with necessities, or, as the proverb says, like selling one's breeches to buy a wig. But an age without passion has no values, and everything is transformed into representational ideas. Thus there are certain remarks and expressions current which, though true and reasonable up to a point, are lifeless." (pg. 11)
Prescient in Kierkegaard’s thoughts and social critiques from start to finish, but I did feel like the first half was loaded with heavy hitting quotes. It’s said plenty of time for various authors and philosophers, but I’m always baffled when a sentiment from nearly 200 years ago, still stand the test of time and human error.
- “Our age is essentially one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm, and shrewdly relapsing into repose.” (pg. 3)
- "Nowadays not even a suicide kills himself in desperation. Before taking the step he deliberates so long and so carefully that he literally chokes with thought. It is even questionable whether he ought to be called a suicide, since it is really thought which takes his life He does not die with deliberation but from deliberation.” (pg. 3)
- "But the present generation, wearied by its chimerical efforts, relapses into complete in-dolence. Its condition is that of a man who has only fallen asleep towards morning: first of all come great dreams, then a feeling of laziness, and finally a witty or clever excuse for remaining in bed." (pg. 4)
- “However well-meaning and strong the individual man may be (if he could only use his strength), he still has not the passion to be able to tear himself from the coils and seductive uncertainty of reflection. Nor do his surroundings supply the events or produce the general enthusiasm necessary in order to free him.” (pg. 4-5)
- "A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere." (pg. 6)
- "The age of great and good actions is past, the present is the age of anticipation when even recognition is received in advance. No one is satisfied with doing something definite, every one wants to feel flattered by reflection with the illusion of having discovered at the very least a new continent.” (pg. 7)
- “Briefly, instead of being strengthened in their discernment and encouraged to do good, the guests would more probably go home with an even stronger predisposition to the most dangerous, if also the most respectable, of all diseases; to admire in public what is considered unimportant in private-since everything is made into a joke.” (pg. 9)
- "Formerly it was agreed that a man stood or fell by his actions; nowadays, on the contrary, every one idles about and comes off brilliantly with the help of a little reflection, Knowing perfectly well what ought to be done.” (pg. 9-10)
- “The present age with its sudden enthusiasms followed by apathy and indolence is very near the comic; but those who understand the comic see quite clearly that the comic is not where the present age imagines.” (pg. 10)
- "To be witty without possessing the riches of inwardness is like squandering money upon luxuries and dispensing with necessities, or, as the proverb says, like selling one's breeches to buy a wig. But an age without passion has no values, and everything is transformed into representational ideas. Thus there are certain remarks and expressions current which, though true and reasonable up to a point, are lifeless." (pg. 11)