# Quote — Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or

> When the muse summoned them, she beckoned them away from the world, and they now listen only to her voice, and the wealth of thought lies open before them, but so overpoweringly that although every word stands out clearly and vividly, it seems to them as if it were not their own property. When, then, consciousness has so come to itself that it possesses the entire content, then the moment has arrived which contains the possibility of real creation; and yet something is missing; missing is the occasion, which one might say is equally necessary, although in another sense, it is infinitely insignificant. Thus it has pleased the gods to join the greatest contradictions together. This is a mystery in which reality abounds, a stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness. The occasion is always the accidental, and thus is the tremendous paradox, that the accidental is just as absolutely necessary as the necessary. The occasion is not in the ideal sense the accidental, as when I logically think the accidental; but the occasion is, irrationally regarded, the accidental, and yet in this accidentality, the necessary.

- Author: [Søren Kierkegaard](https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard.md)
- Book: [Either/Or](https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard/eitheror.md)
- Page: 231
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Either/Or#The_First_Love) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard/eitheror/when-the-muse

## More from this book

> As the Pastor puts it, "Therefore, wishing to be in the wrong is an expression of an infinite relationship, and wanting to be in the right, or finding it painful to be in the wrong, is an expression of a finite relationship! Hence, it is upbuilding always to be in the wrong-because only the infinite builds up; the finite does not!"

p. 243 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard/eitheror/as-the-pastor.md)

> Father in heaven! Teach us to pray rightly so that our hearts may open up to you in prayer and supplication and hide no furtive desire that we know is not acceptable to you, nor any secret fear that you will deny us anything that will truly be for our good, so that the labouring thoughts, the restless mind, the fearful heart may find rest in and through that alone in which and through which it can be found-by always joyfully thanking you as we gladly confess that in relation to you we are always in the wrong. Amen.

p. 341 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard/eitheror/father-in-heaven.md)

> Anyone who refuses to struggle with actualities acquires phantoms to struggle against.

p. 223 — [Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/soren-kierkegaard/eitheror/anyone-who-refuses.md)