Alas, it is horrible to see a man rush to his own destruction. It is
horrible to see him dance on the rim of the abyss without any
intimation of it. But this clarity about himself and about his own
destruction is even more horrible. It is horrible to see a man seek
comfort by hurling himself into the whirlpool of despair. But this
coolness is still more horrible: that, in the anxiety of death, a man
should not cry out for help, " I am going under, save me"; but that
he should quietly choose to be a witness to his own destruction!. Oh,
most extreme vanity, not to wish to draw man's eyes to himself by
beauty, by riches, by ability, by power, by honor, but to wish to get
his attention by his own destruction, by choosing to say to himself
what at most pity in all sadness may venture to say of such a person
at his grave, "Yet some good went down with him." Oh horrible
doubleness of mind in a man's destruction, to wish to draw a sort of
advantage out of the fact that the Good remains the only thing that a
man has not willed. For now the other will becomes apparent to him,
even if it were so weak so as to be but a feeble dallying in the
moment of destruction, an attempt to be exceptional by means of his
own destruction.
-----------(Excerpt From Purity Of Heart) by SØREN KIERKEGAARD
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