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| ...the state is continually subject to the scepticism that quantity defines the concept, that the largest number is the truth. ["The State", 1854] The state thus makes it a condition that he is a Christian and then lets him do something which, for Christianity, is proof that he is not a Christian. ["State Church", 1854] ...the subjective acceptance is precisely the decisive factor; and an objective acceptance of Christianity is paganism or thoughtlessness. Christianity proposes to endow the individual with an eternal happiness, a good which is not distributed wholesale, but only to one individual at a time. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript] The Teacher is God, and he gives the learner the requisite condition and the Truth. [Philosophical Fragments] The teaching in the establishment, and its institutions, are very good. But the existences, our lives--believe me, they are mediocre. ["My Life's Significance in This Age", 1851] The temporal point of departure is nothing; for as soon as I discover that I have known the Truth from eternity without being aware of it, the same instant this moment of occasion is hidden in the eternal, and so incorporated with it that I cannot even find it, so to speak, even if I sought it; because in my eternal consciousness there is neither here nor there, but only an ubique et nusquam [Everywhere and nowhere]. [Philosophical Fragments] The thing is that people do not believe, they go through the historical motions. ["The Primitive--The Traditional", 1851] The thing of being a Christian is not determined by the what of Christianity but by the how of the Christian. [Concluding Unscientific Postscript] The truth is a trap: you cannot get it without it getting you; you cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by it capturing you. [1854] The truth is always in the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because as a rule the minority is made up of those who actually have an opinion, while the strength of the majority is illusory, formed of that crowd which has no opinion. ["Majority--Minority", 1850] The unchangeableness is the true independence: every change, be it the swoon of weakness or the arrogance of pride, the sighing or the self-satisfied, is dependence. If one man, when another man says to him, "I can no longer love you," proudly answers, "Then I can stop loving you," is this independence? Alas, it is only dependence, for the fact as to whether he will continue ot love or not depends on whether the other will love. But the one who answers, "Then I will still continue to love you," his love is everlastingly free in blessed independence. He does not say it proudly--dependent on his pride; no, he says it humbly, humbling himself under the "shalt" of eternity, and just for that reason he is independent. [Works of Love] |
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